Minister of Digital Affairs Huang Yen-nun (黃彥男) yesterday presented his plan to increase the value of Taiwan’s digital market economy to more than NT$1 trillion (US$30.98 billion) within two years.
The Ministry of Digital Affairs’ role is to encourage profit, and as such, its policies should be geared toward assisting with industrial growth, Huang said in an interview with the Chinese-language Central News Agency.
With a global focus on the digital economy, Taiwan should play to its strengths, which would be industries related to artificial intelligence (AI), he said, adding that they remain his priority.
Photo: CNA
Huang said he has three main policies, the first of which is fostering AI “eco-parks” as government measures to develop a digital economy.
He has discussed with National Development Council Director-General Paul Liu (劉鏡清) what incentives would attract foreign and local AI companies to invest in such parks, Huang said.
While the policy is still under discussion, the goal is to have one eco-park in the south and one in the north of the nation, he said, adding that the ministry considers this a vital policy point and hopes to complete all planning by the end of the year.
The ministry is encouraging the Taiwanese information security industry to seek opportunities abroad, Huang said.
Taiwan’s strengths lie in combining software and hardware in one cohesive product, for example, possibly by integrating information security with the Internet of Things, which would help create a digitally secure cloud service that users feel more secure using, he said.
“Software is everything in the future,” Huang said, adding that Taiwan would acquire significant business if it could create packaged solutions applicable to the agricultural, medical and manufacturing sectors.
The second policy is to prevent scamming by having the ministry create a Web site that identifies whether a number belongs to scammers, he said.
The third is to build up information security resilience, Huang said.
He has been sent proposals to amend the Cybersecurity Management Act (資通安全法), which would empower the ministry’s Administration for Cyber Security to inspect the level of information security at government offices, Huang said.
Backing up information to the cloud should be encouraged, and encryption technology, including quantum encoding, should be further researched and utilized, Huang said.
The ministry hopes to popularize the concept of “zero trust” and the use of multifactor authentication technologies, which would significantly deter hackers from accessing internal networks even if a password is leaked, he said.
Asked about the US demanding that ByteDance Ltd (字節跳動) divest TikTok’s US assets or face a ban, Huang said that Taiwan would not take the lead on implementing similar policies, but would continue to monitor developments.
However, he said he “hoped it would come to fruition,” as Taiwan could link to TikTok’s US servers.
A signaling system malfunction disrupted high-speed rail (HSR) services beginning at 8am today, with trains temporarily reduced to three northbound and three southbound trains per hour as authorities conduct inspections. The malfunction occurred on a section of track in Miaoli County during pre-operation checks early this morning, forcing northbound and southbound trains to use a single track, the HSR operator said. The regular schedule has been replaced with three hourly trains offering only nonreserved seating in each direction, stopping at every station, it said, adding that business class cars would still have reserved seating. Departures from terminal stations are scheduled at the top
DRONE CENTRAL: Taiwan aims to become Asia’s democratic hub for drones, with most exports focused on high-quality military-grade models, an official said Taiwan’s drone industry is expected to expand significantly by 2030, producing 100,000 units per month and exporting half of them, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Current drone production capacity is about 15,000 units per month, but the industry can quickly scale up as demand increases, Industrial Development Administration Director-General Chiou Chyou-huey (邱求慧) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s drone output grew 2.5-fold last year to NT$12.9 billion (US$408.3 million) under a government program to develop the uncrewed vehicle sector, he said. The Executive Yuan in October last year approved plans to invest NT$44.2 billion into domestic production of uncrewed aerial
VERBOSE VESSELS: A CGA cutter and a China Coast Guard exchanged verbal barbs for more than a day in Taiwanese-controlled waters before the Chinese vessel left The Taiwanese and Chinese coast guards had a standoff near the strategically located Pratas Islands (Dongsha Islands, 東沙群島) in the north of the South China Sea, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The two sides engaged in intense radio exchanges over sovereignty claims during the 33-hour standoff. China Coast Guard vessel 3501 eventually left the restricted waters, 26.6 nautical miles (49.2km) west of the Pratas Islands, at 5pm yesterday, the CGA said. Lying approximately between southern Taiwan and Hong Kong, the Taiwan-controlled Pratas are seen by some security experts as vulnerable to Chinese attack due to their distance — more than
WARNING: China should stop engaging in actions that undermine regional peace and stability, as it would only build resentment among people across the Strait, the CGA said China has deployed more than 100 navy, coast guard and other vessels in waters from the Yellow Sea to the South China Sea and the western Pacific since US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) met in Beijing, National Security Council Secretary-General Joseph Wu (吳釗燮) said yesterday. “In this part of the world, #China is the one & only PROBLEM wrecking the #StatusQuo & threatening regional peace & stability,” Wu wrote on X. In a separate post, he said Beijing was coercing Taiwan’s maritime domain, calling it illegal and provocative, after the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) expelled a
RSS