Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had fun trying out software to help students learn Chinese while visiting the Taiwan pavilion during the 16th World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT) at the Kuala Lumpur Convention Center on Monday.
Badawi, as a head of the host country, paid a visit to the Taiwan booth after the formal opening of the exhibition.
He scored an 80 out of 100 for his pronunciation of ni hao (你好), or “hello” in Chinese, after a crash course in using software that recognizes the pronunciation of Chinese words.
On the same occasion, Johnsee Lee (李鍾熙), head of the Taiwanese delegation and president of Taiwan’s Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), gave Badawi a gold foil replica of an ancient Chinese painting from the National Palace Museum.
During his visit, Badawi also listened to a pre-recorded speech delivered by President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
Ma offered his greetings to all participants and delegates from more than 60 WCIT member countries and emphasized Taiwan’s role in the global information and communications technology (ICT) industry, while expressing the hope of forging alliances with ICT industries in other countries.
Also on Monday, George Newstrom, chairman of the World Information Technology and Services Alliance, extended his congratulations to Ma on his election and called him a “friend of WCIT.”
The Taiwan pavilion, showcasing the latest state-of-the-art ICT applications under the theme of Smart Living, is a collaborative effort among ITRI, Institute for Information Industry, and Chunghwa Telecom (中華電信).
Taiwan’s technology protection rules prohibits Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) from producing 2-nanometer chips abroad, so the company must keep its most cutting-edge technology at home, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. Kuo made the remarks in response to concerns that TSMC might be forced to produce advanced 2-nanometer chips at its fabs in Arizona ahead of schedule after former US president Donald Trump was re-elected as the next US president on Tuesday. “Since Taiwan has related regulations to protect its own technologies, TSMC cannot produce 2-nanometer chips overseas currently,” Kuo said at a meeting of the legislature’s
GEOPOLITICAL ISSUES? The economics ministry said that political factors should not affect supply chains linking global satellite firms and Taiwanese manufacturers Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) asked Taiwanese suppliers to transfer manufacturing out of Taiwan, leading to some relocating portions of their supply chain, according to sources employed by and close to the equipment makers and corporate documents. A source at a company that is one of the numerous subcontractors that provide components for SpaceX’s Starlink satellite Internet products said that SpaceX asked their manufacturers to produce outside of Taiwan because of geopolitical risks, pushing at least one to move production to Vietnam. A second source who collaborates with Taiwanese satellite component makers in the nation said that suppliers were directly
Top Taiwanese officials yesterday moved to ease concern about the potential fallout of Donald Trump’s return to the White House, making a case that the technology restrictions promised by the former US president against China would outweigh the risks to the island. The prospect of Trump’s victory in this week’s election is a worry for Taipei given the Republican nominee in the past cast doubt over the US commitment to defend it from Beijing. But other policies championed by Trump toward China hold some appeal for Taiwan. National Development Council Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) described the proposed technology curbs as potentially having
EXPORT CONTROLS: US lawmakers have grown more concerned that the US Department of Commerce might not be aggressively enforcing its chip restrictions The US on Friday said it imposed a US$500,000 penalty on New York-based GlobalFoundries Inc, the world’s third-largest contract chipmaker, for shipping chips without authorization to an affiliate of blacklisted Chinese chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯). The US Department of Commerce in a statement said GlobalFoundries sent 74 shipments worth US$17.1 million to SJ Semiconductor Corp (盛合晶微半導體), an affiliate of SMIC, without seeking a license. Both SMIC and SJ Semiconductor were added to the department’s trade restriction Entity List in 2020 over SMIC’s alleged ties to the Chinese military-industrial complex. SMIC has denied wrongdoing. Exports to firms on the list
RSS