The government is to purchase 100 more graphics processing units (GPUs) to boost Taiwan’s high-performance computing power that is essential to the development of the artificial intelligence (AI) industry, the Ministry of Digital Affairs (MODA) said yesterday.
The ministry plans to procure 100 more GPUs this year if the legislature approves its proposed budget, Administration for Digital Industries Director-General Lin Jiunn-shiow (林俊秀) told a news conference.
“The number of GPUs owned by the government would reach 140, including the 40 GPUs purchased in 2024,” he said, adding that computing power generated by GPUs would be available to use by AI start-up firms and information service providers.
Photo: CNA
Minister of Digital Affairs Lin Yi-jing (林宜敬) said that the government was unable to boost the computing power last year because of a comprehensive budget cut.
“Computing power is crucial to the development of the AI industry in Taiwan. We hope that the legislature would quickly pass the budget plan,” Lin Yi-jing said.
Ministry of Economic Affairs data showed that Taiwan has sufficient electricity to build computing power centers, he said.
“We hope such facilities would be built and funded by the private sector to ensure that their cloud data centers would continue to operate with enough electricity,” he added.
Lin Yi-jing detailed the four goals that the ministry aims to accomplish this year: stepping up efforts to crack down on online scams, developing the software industry, bolstering cybersecurity resilience and building a digital government.
As of Tuesday last week, the ministry’s network had received reports of 614,971 online scam cases, of which 298,299 cases had been taken down.
“We will continue to expand our anti-scam team by including online service providers in the private sector. Meta, which owns Facebook, has used 300,000 scam messages to train its AI system to flag scams,” Lin Yi-jing said.
Specific measures to develop the software industry include providing free computing power to AI start-up teams; proposing a data innovation and utilization development bill (促進資料創新利用發展條例); establishing the Taiwan Sovereign AI Training Corpus; issuing AI talent industry accreditation guidelines (AI人才產業認定指引); jointly setting up the AI Civil Service Talent Development Office with the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration; organizing industry matchmaking events; and introducing National Development Fund capital to advance the “Enhanced Investment in AI Start-ups Implementation Program,” he said.
Comprehensive protection measures would be implemented across legal, technological and commercial dimensions, with the goal of enhancing cybersecurity resilience across land, sea and air domains, he said.
As for building a digital government, the ministry is to promote the Digital Certificate Wallet policy, providing integrated, one-stop digital services across agencies, from birth and schooling to employment and old age, he said.
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