The US agency tasked with driving scientific research has launched a program to connect US start-ups with their Taiwanese peers, backing Taiwan’s ambitions to foster key players in strategic sectors such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence (AI) and beyond.
The National Science Foundation (NSF) — one of the US federal government’s biggest outfits for funding research — is for the first time sponsoring a series of workshops abroad to help US start-ups work with their overseas counterparts. It chose to begin in Taiwan, which plays an increasingly pivotal role in chips and the technology supply chain.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs is backing the effort, which aims to discover and finance firms exploring “deep tech,” or cutting-edge arenas, including biotechnology and quantum computing.
Photo: Reuters
The US agency intends to expand the program to other nations over time, NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan told Bloomberg News.
While many of history’s most successful start-ups — including the likes of Nvidia Corp — began in the US, the bulk of hardware innovation now centers on Asia.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) alone makes about 90 percent of the most advanced logic chips.
The US Department of Commerce has awarded TSMC US$11.6 billion of grants and loans to build three plants in Arizona, underscoring its pivotal industry role.
“You just can’t do everything on your own or within the United States. You have supply chains and other things that are global,” said Michelle Kiang (江夢熊), the cofounder of Impact Science Ventures who helped the US agency conceive the program.
She devised the program with David Horsley, a Northeastern University professor and chip researcher.
“So you want to invest in those relationships early and also in different ways, so that these start-ups out of the United States are able to build a very strong global supply chain as well as a global business to continue to fuel the growth of the US economy,” Kiang said.
Taiwan’s technology start-ups have struggled to raise funds the way their counterparts in Silicon Valley do. The government is looking to change that, National Science and Technology Council Minister Wu Tsung-Tsong (吳政忠) said.
One of his missions is to help bridge the gap between academia and industry, not unlike the US foundation. The council is also keen on attracting more overseas talent, such as through a contest for global technology start-ups to be announced next month that would offer the winners a chance to turn their ideas into reality with Taiwanese companies, including TSMC.
Last year, the government launched the Taiwan Chip-based Industrial Innovation Program with a US$10 billion budget over 10 years.
“For Taiwan, manufacturing plays a very important role, but for innovations in different areas, we are still on the starting step,” Wu told Bloomberg News. “We think that if a lot of talent comes to Taiwan, then capital will come.”
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
UPDATED FORECAST: The warning covered areas of Pingtung County and Hengchun Peninsula, while a sea warning covering the southern Taiwan Strait was amended The Central Weather Administration (CWA) at 5:30pm yesterday issued a land warning for Typhoon Usagi as the storm approached Taiwan from the south after passing over the Philippines. As of 5pm, Usagi was 420km south-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost tip, with an average radius of 150km, the CWA said. The land warning covered areas of Pingtung County and the Hengchun Peninsula (恆春), and came with an amended sea warning, updating a warning issued yesterday morning to cover the southern part of the Taiwan Strait. No local governments had announced any class or office closures as of press time last night. The typhoon
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
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