With the US-China tech war raging on and companies like Micron caught in the crossfire, how should the government address semiconductor R&D and talent planning in response to new situational changes? Some US academics recently suggested that besides semiconductors, the US and Taiwan can also cooperate in fields like quantum and net-zero technologies.
By Chung Li-hua and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writerA new government policy dubbed the “Taiwan Artificial Intelligence （AI） Action Plan 2.0” aims to increase the value of the nation’s AI industry to more than NT$250 billion （US$8.16 billion）, the Executive Yuan’s Office of Science and Technology Policy said yesterday.
Universities to receive direct defence ministry funding
Taiwan’s defence ministry is to finance research and development of defence-related technologies at universities for the first time in a new programme which could see up to 150 graduate students funded over the next five years.
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, together with the Ministry of Science and Technology, have been jointly allocated NT$5 billion (US$147 million) by the government over the next five years for the programme to focus on information security and robotics, artificial intelligence, the internet of things and quantum computing, which Wu Tsung-tsong, Taiwan’s minister of science and technology, said last month were key to defence technology development.
National Science and Technology Conference to open
By Lin Chia-nan / Staff reporter
The quadrennial National Science and Technology Conference opens today at the Taipei International Convention Center, with this year’s agenda focusing on talent cultivation, strategic technology, innovation and healthcare.
The three-day conference, aimed at collecting opinions from industrial, academic and civic representatives to use in fashioning the nation’s tech policy toward 2030, would also be live-streamed, the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) said on Saturday.
The previous conference in 2016 featured Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co founder Morris Chang (張忠謀), who said at the time that the event had mostly revolved around “abstract” discussions, with a smaller turnout of industrial representatives, and that most Taiwanese businesses had to find their own way when the nation’s tech policy lacked direction.