The Executive Yuan yesterday resumed a high-level Science and Technology Advisory Board Meeting after a 12-year hiatus, as the government aims to seek recommendations from industry leaders to craft new strategies for the nation to enhance its global competitiveness over the next decade, the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) said in a statement.
During the 31 meetings held between 1980 and 2011, the government had sought advice from science and technology experts to help build world-class industries from semiconductor and biological technology to information and communications technology, the statement said.
“We are now in an era where science and technology have become synonymous with national strength on a global scale,” President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said at the meeting in Taipei.
Photo: Tien Yu-hua, Taipei Times
The three-day meeting is to focus on two main themes — green technologies amid the global effort to move toward carbon neutrality and possible mutual enhancement between artificial intelligence (AI) and the semiconductor industry.
Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) and NSTC Minister Wu Tsung-tsong (吳政忠) are leading the meeting, while Academia Sinica President James Liao (廖俊智) is serving as the top technology adviser.
Meanwhile, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) and MediaTek Inc chairman Rick Tsai (蔡明介) are among the advisers at this year’s meeting, along with National Taiwan University president Chen Wen-chang (陳文章), US Scripps Research Institute professor Wong Chi-huey (翁啟惠), Harvard University computer science professor Kung Hsiang-tsung (孔祥重).
Taiwan has built a resilient and comprehensive semiconductor supply chain not seen in the rest of the world. To safeguard that technology leadership, the NSTC has proposed spending NT$300 billion (US$9.52 billion) over the next 10 years on fostering semiconductor and AI start-ups, as well as creating bigger talent pools, the council said.
Chen Chien-jen said this year’s meeting would focus on green energy, and the semiconductor and AI technologies that are expected to have a major impact on society and its development in the next 10 to 20 years.
“We expect that the advisers’ professional and visionary advice, based on Taiwan’s own existing advantages, will bolster and ensure the continued prosperity of Taiwan’s tech sector,” he said, adding that next year’s budget for technology development is more than NT$150 billion, up 18 percent from this year.
The second day of the meeting is to focus on the net-zero industry, aiming to make Taiwan a model for the world, the council said.
Over the three days, the group would come up with both medium and long-term technology development strategies with the goal of helping Taiwan achieve the highest technical capabilities, it said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday obtained the government’s approval to inject an additional US$7.5 billion into its US subsidiary, the Department of Investment Review said in a statement. The department approved TSMC’s application of investing in TSMC Arizona Corp, which is engaged in the manufacturing, sales, testing and design of IC and other semiconductor devices, it said. The latest capital injection follows a US$5 billion investment for TSMC Arizona approved in June. The chipmaker has broken ground on two advanced fabs in Arizona with aggregated investments approved by the department totaling US$24 billion thus far. According to TSMC, the first Arizona
The lethal hack of Hezbollah’s Asian-branded pagers and walkie-talkies has sparked an intense search for the devices’ path, revealing a murky market for older technologies where buyers might have few assurances about what they are getting. While supply chains and distribution channels for higher-margin and newer products are tightly managed, that is not the case for older electronics from Asia where counterfeiting, surplus inventories and complex contract manufacturing deals can sometimes make it impossible to identify the source of a product, analysts and consultants say. The response from the companies at the center of the booby-trapped gadgets that killed 37
FRIENDLY TAKEOVER: While Qualcomm Inc’s proposal to buy some or all of Intel raises the prospect of other competitors, Broadcom Inc is staying on the sidelines Qualcomm Inc has approached Intel Corp to discuss a potential acquisition of the struggling chipmaker, people with knowledge of the matter said, raising the prospect of one of the biggest-ever merger and acquisition deals. California-based Qualcomm proposed a friendly takeover for Intel in recent days, said the sources, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information. The proposal is for all of the chipmaker, although Qualcomm has not ruled out buying some parts of Intel and selling off others. It is uncertain whether the initial approach would lead to an agreement and any deal is likely to come under close antitrust scrutiny
SECURITY CONCERNS: The proposed ban on Chinese autonomous vehicle software and hardware would go into effect with the 2027 and 2030 model years respectively The US Department of Commerce today is expected to propose prohibiting Chinese software and hardware in connected and autonomous vehicles on US roads due to national security concerns, two sources said. US President Joe Biden’s administration has raised concerns about the collection of data by Chinese companies on US drivers and infrastructure as well as the potential foreign manipulation of vehicles connected to the Internet and navigation systems. The proposed regulation would ban the import and sale of vehicles from China with key communications or automated driving system software or hardware, said the two sources, who declined to be identified because the