Taiwan has been ranked 16th out of 63 nations in global digital competitiveness by the Switzerland-based International Institute for Management Development (IMD) for this year, four places lower than last year.
Taiwan was fifth among economies in the Asia-Pacific region, behind Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia and South Korea, but ahead of Japan, China and Thailand, according to the IMD World Digital Competitiveness Ranking 2018 published on Tuesday.
The US overtook Singapore as the world’s most digitally competitive economy, while the city-state fell to second place, followed by Sweden, Denmark and Switzerland.
The rankings measure economies using 50 indicators in three categories: knowledge, technology and future readiness.
Taiwan was ranked 19th in technology, 11th in knowledge and 22nd in future readiness.
Responding to the nation’s four-place fall, the National Development Council said that, as Taiwan is not a member of the UN, many international institutions that compile world rankings have difficulty collecting official statistics and the ranking does not necessarily reflect the real situation.
Citing the indicator for “smartphone possession” under the sub-factor of “adaptive attitudes” in the future readiness category as an example, the council said that the ranking dropped from last year’s fifth place to 27th this year, adding that the ranking represents a huge difference from the public perception of smartphone possession in Taiwan.
After contacting IMD, the council learned that the figure for smartphone possession in Taiwan at 70.2 percent was given to the IMD by Euromonitor International Ltd, a privately owned company that provides global business intelligence and strategic market analysis.
However, there is a huge difference between the data provided by Euromonitor and the National Communications Commission, the agency responsible for regulating the development of the communications and information industry, which puts the figure at 89.48 percent, the council said.
The council said that it has sent a letter to IMD asking for the figure to be corrected.
Despite significant differences between some data and the real situation in Taiwan, the rankings still highlight the nation’s strength in digital capabilities, with Taiwan ranked among the three most competitive economies in five areas.
Taiwan came first in “total R&D [research and development] personnel per capita,” second in “mobile broadband subscribers” and “IT and media stock market capitalization,” and third in “educational assessment in math” and “high-tech exports,” the rankings showed.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”