The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said.
The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry.
The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and Nano 5, which have a maximum combined computing power of 28.26 petaflops.
Photo courtesy of the National Center for High-Performance Computing
With the addition of Nano 4, the nation’s computing power would jump threefold to 114.31 petaflops.
The computing power buildup is part of the five-year Chip-based Industrial Innovation Program, which began in 2024.
Nano 4 ranks 29th globally according to the Top500 project, which ranks and details the 500 most powerful non-distributed computer systems.
Nano 4 has a dual-compute architecture, featuring 220 Nvidia H200 nodes, each equipped with eight H200 GPUs and 2TB of memory, the center said. The supercomputer is also the first in Taiwan to deploy Nvidia’s flagship artificial intelligence (AI) computing platform introduced last year — two GB200 NVL72 systems, each configured with 72 Blackwell GPUs and 13.5TB of memory.
NCHC director-general Chang Chau-lyan (張朝亮) said that H200 nodes are in charge of large-scale parallel scientific simulations and hybrid AI workloads, while GB200 systems are dedicated to ultra-large-scale AI training tasks.
The Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information and the National Supercomputing Center Singapore use Nvidia H-series chips and have reservations about Blackwell architecture, Chang said.
Taiwan, by contrast, adopted GB-series chips for its high efficiency to run AI applications.
Taiwan was slightly behind in building advanced computing power due to a limited budget, Chang said, adding that Nano 4 must provide the strong support that Taiwan needs to speed up AI development.
“We have high expectations for Nano 4 and hope that it would meet the urgent demand for AI computing power,” he said.
One-third of computing power generated by Nano 4 would be used by researchers in academia and projects funded by the National Science and Technology Council, while another third would be used by the government so that it would not have to use AI models developed by other countries, Chang said.
The remaining third would be used by industry, including small and medium-sized firms and start-ups, he said.
“Should industry professionals need to develop AI models, they can bring their data to the center and do a proof of concept or conduct a trial in a confidential environment,” he added.
The Nano 4 would make it possible to create large language models to train AI to understand high-level professional knowledge in financial, legal and defense sectors, Chang said.
Nano 4 is open for testing for certain users until June and is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, he said.
The center is proposing to build Nano 3 (晶創27), a large mainframe equipped with CPUs and GPUs that would replace Taiwania 3, which would retire next year.
In addition to Nvidia, the center also procures machinery from Advanced Micro Devices to avoid becoming dependent on certain suppliers, Chang said.
The Legislative Yuan’s Finance Committee yesterday approved proposed amendments to the Amusement Tax Act (娛樂稅法) that would abolish taxes on films, cultural activities and competitive sporting events, retaining the fee only for dance halls and golf courses. The proposed changes would set the maximum tax rate for dance halls and golf courses at 50 and 20 percent respectively, with local governments authorized to suspend the levies. Article 2 of the act says that “amusement tax shall be levied on tickets sold or fees charged by amusement places, facilities or activities” in six categories: “Cinema; professional singing, story-telling, dancing, circus, magic show, acrobatics
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
INFLATION UP? The IMF said CPI would increase to 1.5 percent this year, while the DGBAS projected it would rise to 1.68 percent, with GDP per capita of US$44,181 The IMF projected Taiwan’s real GDP would grow 5.2 percent this year, up from its 2.1 percent outlook in January, despite fears of global economic disruptions sparked by the US-Iran conflict. Taiwan’s consumer price index (CPI) is projected to increase to 1.5 percent, while unemployment would be 3.4 percent, roughly in line with estimates for Asia as a whole, the international body wrote in its Global Economic Outlook Report published in the US on Monday. The figures are comparatively better than the IMF outlook for the rest of the world, which pegged real GDP growth at 3.1 percent, down from 3.3 percent
CREDIT-GRABBER: China said its coast guard rescued the crew of a fishing vessel that caught fire, who were actually rescued by a nearby Taiwanese boat and the CGA Maritime search and rescue operations do not have borders, and China should not use a shipwreck to infringe upon Taiwanese sovereignty, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. The coast guard made the statement in response to the China Coast Guard (CCG) saying it saved a Taiwanese fishing boat. The Chuan Yu No. 6 (全漁6號), a fishing vessel registered in Keelung, on Thursday caught fire and sank in waters northeast of Diaoyutai Islands (釣魚台). The vessel left Keelung’s Badouzih Fishing Harbor (八斗子漁港) at 3:35pm on Sunday last week, with seven people on board — a 62-year-old Taiwanese captain surnamed Chang (張) and six
RSS