To maintain Taiwan’s competitiveness in the global semiconductor industry, the nation needs to compete in the entire value chain, instead of just chip manufacturing, economic historian Chris Miller, author of the book Chip War: The Fight for the World’s Most Critical Technology, said on Thursday.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Robert N. Noyce Award ceremony hosted by the Semiconductor Industry Association in San Jose, California, Miller said Taiwan already plays a critical role in chip production, making an artificial intelligence (AI) era possible.
“But there’s so much more value that we created across the value chain by artificial intelligence,” he said. “So, I think the challenge for Taiwan is to make sure it’s competing in a whole variety of value chain steps, not only the chips, where Taiwan is already very, very capable, but also in the software and application layers as well.”
Photo: Ritchie B. Tongo, EPA
AI has changed the landscape of the global semiconductor industry, and software is expected to become a very important part of the industry, although the focus right now is on chips and infrastructure, Miller said.
“AI will accelerate those changes,” he said. “I think it’s important for countries to think about... the AI technology stack as well.”
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) and former TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) on Thursday received the Robert N. Noyce Award — the highest honor in the semiconductor industry.
TSMC leaders were given the award, as the chipmaker has become a central player in the global semiconductor ecosystem that has benefited Taiwan and the US, Miller said, adding that the award was evidence that such cooperation would continue for a long time.
“I think the US ecosystem is always going to exist in collaboration with the Japanese and the European and the [South] Korean and the Taiwanese chip ecosystem,” he said. “No country is going to be self-sufficient.”
Still, the sentiment in the global semiconductor industry appeared mixed, as worries over geopolitical tensions continue growing and an extraordinary surge in AI investments has pushed up demand for chips, Miller said.
Amid growing geopolitical unease, the global supply chain has been restructuring, posing more challenges to the global semiconductor industry, he said, adding that Taiwan is not the only one that needs to navigate the turbulences.
“The reality is, if you got a technology everyone else requires, then geopolitics is just gonna be less impactful, because everyone needs your technology,” Miller said.
Miller praised TSMC, which manufactures about 90 percent of the world’s high-end chips, for its importance, saying everyone in the world needs the chips that the company produces.
ALIGNED THINKING: Taiwan and Japan have a mutual interest in trade, culture and engineering, and can work together for stability, Cho Jung-tai said Taiwan and Japan are two like-minded countries willing to work together to form a “safety barrier” in the Indo-Pacific region, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday said at the opening ceremony of the 35th Taiwan-Japan Modern Engineering and Technology Symposium in Taipei. Taiwan and Japan are close geographically and closer emotionally, he added. Citing the overflowing of a barrier lake in the Mataian River (馬太鞍溪) in September, Cho said the submersible water level sensors given by Japan during the disaster helped Taiwan monitor the lake’s water levels more accurately. Japan also provided a lot of vaccines early in the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic,
Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁) on Monday announced light shows and themed traffic lights to welcome fans of South Korean pop group Twice to the port city. The group is to play Kaohsiung on Saturday as part of its “This Is For” world tour. It would be the group’s first performance in Taiwan since its debut 10 years ago. The all-female group consists of five South Koreans, three Japanese and Tainan’s Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜), the first Taiwan-born and raised member of a South Korean girl group. To promote the group’s arrival, the city has been holding a series of events, including a pop-up
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday voiced dissatisfaction with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans- Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), whose latest meeting, concluded earlier the same day, appeared not to address the country’s application. In a statement, MOFA said the CPTPP commission had "once again failed to fairly process Taiwan’s application," attributing the inaction to the bloc’s "succumbing to political pressure," without elaborating. Taiwan submitted its CPTPP application under the name "Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu" on Sept. 22, 2021 -- less than a week after China
TEMPORAL/SPIRITUAL: Beijing’s claim that the next Buddhist leader must come from China is a heavy-handed political maneuver that will fall flat-faced, experts said China’s requirement that the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation to be born in China and approved by Beijing has drawn criticism, with experts at a forum in Taipei yesterday saying that if Beijing were to put forth its own Dalai Lama, the person would not be recognized by the Tibetan Buddhist community. The experts made a remarks at the two-day forum hosted by the Tibet Religious Foundation of His Holiness the Dalai Lama titled: “The Snow Land Forum: Finding Common Ground on Tibet.” China says it has the right to determine the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation, as it claims sovereignty over Tibet since ancient times,
RSS