Taiwan will have helped establish 41 digital opportunity centers in seven developing nations by the end of this year under an APEC initiative to bridge the digital divide, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
From August 2004 until the middle of last month, 34 such centers had been set up in Chile, Indonesia, Peru, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Vietnam and Thailand, with more than 51,000 information and communications technology professionals in these countries trained through the program, the ministry’s Bureau of Foreign Trade said.
The APEC Digital Opportunity Center (ADOC) initiative was put forth by Taiwan in 2003 during an annual informal APEC leadership summit held in Bangkok, Thailand.
The goal was to use Taiwan’s edge in information technology and digital experience to assist developing APEC member states in upgrading their information technology capabilities.
Through the project, Taiwan also hopes to enhance its global visibility, strengthen its friendship with other APEC member states and expand business opportunities, the bureau said.
In preparation for the conclusion of the first phase of the ADOC initiative at the end of this year, senior officials and business leaders from Taiwan will meet with their counterparts from other APEC member states during ADOC Week 2008, set for Sept. 29 to Oct. 4 in Taipei to discuss issues concerning the promotion of the second phase of the initiative.
The proposal to launch a second phase to the ADOC initiative was raised during last year’s informal APEC leadership summit in Sydney, Australia by Stan Shih (施振榮), founder of computer vendor Acer Inc (宏碁), who attended the meeting as a special envoy of then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁).
COMPETITION: AMD, Intel and Qualcomm are unveiling new laptop and desktop parts in Las Vegas, arguing their technologies provide the best performance for AI workloads Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD), the second-biggest maker of computer processors, said its chips are to be used by Dell Technologies Inc for the first time in PCs sold to businesses. The chipmaker unveiled new processors it says would make AMD-based PCs the best at running artificial intelligence (AI) software. Dell has decided to use the chips in some of its computers aimed at business customers, AMD executives said at CES in Las Vegas on Monday. Dell’s embrace of AMD for corporate PCs — it already uses the chipmaker for consumer devices — is another blow for Intel Corp as the company
STIMULUS PLANS: An official said that China would increase funding from special treasury bonds and expand another program focused on key strategic sectors China is to sharply increase funding from ultra-long treasury bonds this year to spur business investment and consumer-boosting initiatives, a state planner official told a news conference yesterday, as Beijing cranks up fiscal stimulus to revitalize its faltering economy. Special treasury bonds would be used to fund large-scale equipment upgrades and consumer goods trade-ins, said Yuan Da (袁達), deputy secretary-general of the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission. “The size of ultra-long special government bond funds will be sharply increased this year to intensify and expand the implementation of the two new initiatives,” Yuan said. Under the program launched last year, consumers can
TECH PULL: Electronics heavyweights also attracted strong buying ahead of the CES, analysts said. Meanwhile, Asian markets were mixed amid Trump’s incoming presidency Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) shares yesterday closed at a new high in the wake of a rally among tech stocks on Wall Street on Friday, moving the TAIEX sharply higher by more than 600 points. TSMC, the most heavily weighted stock in the TAIEX, rose 4.65 percent to close at a new high of NT$1,125, boosting its market value to NT$29.17 trillion (US$888 billion) and contributing about 400 points to the TAIEX’s rise. The TAIEX ended up 639.41 points, or 2.79 percent, at 23,547.71. Turnover totaled NT$406.478 billion, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. The surge in TSMC follows a positive performance
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday said it is teaming up with Nvidia Corp to develop a new chip for artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers that uses architecture licensed from Arm Holdings PLC. The new product is targeting AI researchers, data scientists and students rather than the mass PC market, the company said. The announcement comes as MediaTek makes efforts to add AI capabilities to its Dimensity chips for smartphones and tablets, Genio family for the Internet of Things devices, Pentonic series of smart TVs, Kompanio line of Arm-based Chromebooks, along with the Dimensity auto platform for vehicles. MeidaTek, the world’s largest chip designer for smartphones
RSS