Taiwan’s determination to become an artificial intelligence (AI) island is gaining momentum within the state and the country’s industry in general as the concept has become a buzzword at every level of the new administration.

Since President Lai Ching-te, in his inaugural speech in May, undertook to “transform Taiwan into an AI island”, the country set itself to achieve this objective with zeal.

Every Cabinet minister and state official jumped onto the bandwagon to pursue this ambitious goal.

Country wants to grow its economy

In discussions with a group of senior international journalists currently on tour of the country’s supply chain sector, high-level government officials, including Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr Chia-lung Lin, his deputy Tien Chung-kwang, department of international information services director-general Catherine YM Hsu and Deputy Minister for National Development Council Shien Qucy Kao spoke with one mind and one voice on the issue.

The island nation with a history of embracing cutting-edge technology wants to grow its economy and trade with “like-minded” international partners.

Taiwan, which had a GDP per capita of $32 679 (about R598 460) in 2022, is famous as the world’s leading producer of semiconductors at 70% of these chips.

Taiwan on course to becoming artificial intelligence island These were so much in demand that during the Covid pandemic, a shortage of Taiwanese chips caused the German and Japanese automobile sectors to suffer severely.

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Chia-lung undertook to further deepen economic diplomacy as part of his work.

“We will strengthen our diplomatic relations, especially with our allies who share our values, especially the United States and Japan and Taipei’s European and other partners”.

The minister also had his sights set on South East Asia, especially India, as part of promoting an east-bound policy.

Taiwan intended to leverage on its position as one of the leading world ICT players with semiconductors its prime product.

Redirecting focus

Explaining the role to be played by AI as a point of focus by Taiwan, Tien acknowledged that the interruption of chips supply chain during Covid significantly affected the world economy. But now there would be special focus on AI.

The country’s leading semiconductor manufacturer, TSMC, already produces the advanced chips that are largely used for AI.

Tien said Taiwan was in a perfect position to spread AI in the future, taking advantage of technological advances that already in existence in the country.

With AI expected to remain a major driver of the worldwide semiconductor industry, Tien said the government was committed to promote Taiwan as an AI island through establishing AI as the second economic driver.

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Earlier, NDC’s Kao indicated that the Taiwanese tech industry, particularly semiconductors, were guaranteed to remain resilient into the future because they served major clients based in the US such as Apple, AMD, NVDIA and Qualcomm.

According to president of the Taiwan Textile Federation, Justin Huang, Taiwan could not dispute the fact that China dominated the global textile market, hence Taiwan embarked on an innovation journey around their fabrics.

It used new technologies to innovate beginning with digitalisation, innovation and decarbonisation, producing the high value-added functional textiles that meet international demand.

Huang said the objective was to establish the country as a global innovative player in functional and technical textiles.

This was in line with the trend of leading international sports brands to use recycled material incrementally and the country many other goods produced on a sustainable basis.