In keeping with President William Lai’s (賴清德) vision of transforming Taiwan into an “artificial intelligence [AI] island,” the Executive Yuan has pushed forward a new “10 major AI infrastructure projects” program, which is expected to be introduced in the second half of the year.
The plan is being discussed and formulated by the National Development Council (NDC) and the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC).
Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) on May 20 said the government is mulling a “10 major AI infrastructure projects” program, combining innovative research-and-development with partially physical infrastructure, and that the Cabinet would propose a comprehensive plan as soon as possible to transform Taiwan.
Photo: CNA
The NSTC yesterday said the program encompasses four emerging technologies — intelligent robots, quantum technology, silicon photonics and “sovereign AI.”
The “smart robot program” approved by the Executive Yuan last month is one of the key items of the new program.
The program aims to cultivate start-up robot companies with system development capabilities, expand the domestic output value of smart robots from NT$4 billion (US$134 million) to NT$50 billion within five years for professional service robots and establish a comprehensive supply chain and industrial ecosystem.
The NSTC said the industrial development of silicon photonics technology is already in full swing, and the government would introduce policies to further support its development.
The council also encourages academics to study high-speed, low-power optical connections through heterogeneous integration, which can be applied to critical fields such as AI chip connection and high-speed computing.
QUANTUM TECHNOLOGY
The NSTC has also established a national quantum technology team and is integrating research facilities and industry through a dedicated “quantum technology industrial platform.”
A Thematic Center for Quantum Computer and a Quantum Photonics Research Project have been established at Academia Sinica’s Southern Campus, and the construction of a quantum experiment building is expected to be finished in 2028, it said.
The new program would also encompass six major infrastructure programs, including AI supercomputers and hyperscale data centers.
US chipmaker Nvidia Corp last month announced that it would team up with the NSTC, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) to build an AI supercomputer in Taiwan.
The government is also building supercomputers in Shalun Smart Green Energy Science City in Tainan’s Shalun District (沙崙) and Hsinchu Science Park, with additional facilities planned for central and northern Taiwan.
The government’s supercomputer is expected to reach 480 petaflops (480 quadrillion floating-point operations per second) by 2029, and along with the computing power of private sectors, they are expected to reach a total of 1.2 exaflops, the NSTC said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to start construction of its 1.4-nanometer chip manufacturing facilities at the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP, 中部科學園區) as early as October, the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported yesterday, citing the park administration. TSMC acquired land for the second phase of the park’s expansion in Taichung in June. Large cement, construction and facility engineering companies in central Taiwan have reportedly been receiving bids for TSMC-related projects, the report said. Supply-chain firms estimated that the business opportunities for engineering, equipment and materials supply, and back-end packaging and testing could reach as high as
CHAMPIONS: President Lai congratulated the players’ outstanding performance, cheering them for marking a new milestone in the nation’s baseball history Taiwan on Sunday won their first Little League Baseball World Series (LLBWS) title in 29 years, as Taipei’s Dong Yuan Elementary School defeated a team from Las Vegas 7-0 in the championship game in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. It was Taiwan’s first championship in the annual tournament since 1996, ending a nearly three-decade drought. “It has been a very long time ... and we finally made it,” Taiwan manager Lai Min-nan (賴敏男) said after the game. Lai said he last managed a Dong Yuan team in at the South Williamsport in 2015, when they were eliminated after four games. “There is
POWER PLANT POLL: The TPP said the number of ‘yes’ votes showed that the energy policy should be corrected, and the KMT said the result was a win for the people’s voice The government does not rule out advanced nuclear energy generation if it meets the government’s three prerequisites, President William Lai (賴清德) said last night after the number of votes in favor of restarting a nuclear power plant outnumbered the “no” votes in a referendum yesterday. The referendum failed to pass, despite getting more “yes” votes, as the Referendum Act (公民投票法) states that the vote would only pass if the votes in favor account for more than one-fourth of the total number of eligible voters and outnumber the opposing votes. Yesterday’s referendum question was: “Do you agree that the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant
Democratic nations should refrain from attending China’s upcoming large-scale military parade, which Beijing could use to sow discord among democracies, Mainland Affairs Council Deputy Minister Shen You-chung (沈有忠) said. China is scheduled to stage the parade on Wednesday next week to mark the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. The event is expected to mobilize tens of thousands of participants and prominently showcase China’s military hardware. Speaking at a symposium in Taichung on Thursday, Shen said that Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) recently met with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a visit to New Delhi.