Participants at the Executive Yuan Science and Technology Advisory Board Meeting called on the government to take action to maintain and boost the nation’s technological competitiveness, including by broadening education in technology.
The meeting opened earlier this month, returning after a 12-year hiatus.
The three-day meeting convened top scientists and industry leaders to offer advice on a path forward for Taiwan’s technology development over the next 10 years.
Two main themes were said to have been featured. One was green technologies amid the global effort to move toward carbon neutrality, and the other is the possible mutual enhancement between artificial intelligence (AI) and the semiconductor industry.
On the topic of the development of and mutual enhancement of semiconductors and AI, Taiwan is to continue “capitalizing on its strengths in semiconductors to become a reliable partner in driving global innovations in semiconductor and AI technology,” National Science and Technology Council Executive Secretary Sheen Horn-jiunn (沈弘俊) said.
The strategic direction is to emphasize next-generation talents, accelerating the development of semiconductor and AI applications, and incubating industrial innovations with generative AI, Sheen said.
Regarding green technologies, the vision is a Taiwan that rises to become “a role model in net zero transition by way of a knowledge-based route,” he said, adding that the strategic direction to achieving this is to set decarbonization goals “in accordance with Taiwan’s traits,” and to use the net zero transition as an opportunity to develop “green and local supply chains.”
National Science and Technology Council Minister Wu Tsung-tsong (吳政忠) and Academia Sinica President James Liao (廖俊智), who serves as the top technology adviser, put some flesh to the framework directions advised.
“The advisers said that as generative AI is expected to be used in every industry, technical and vocational education should take up more role, rather than be seen as second-tier,” Wu said, adding that universities also need to be more aligned with what the industry is doing.
Tax incentives should no longer be just provided to equipment or hardware, Wu cited the advisers as saying and added: “More incentives should also be given to ‘brains,’ talents and intellectual property.”
Liao said it was advised that Taiwan should work to continue helping the semiconductor ecosystem advance, such as in critical materials and chemicals, to maintain the nation’s competitive edge in the industry.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching