Taiwan has reached an agreement with industry giants to recruit foreign experts in artificial intelligence (AI) to address a human resources issue in the sector, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) told a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei yesterday.
Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Chiu Yi-ying (邱議瑩) asked officials to detail the government’s plan to create a skilled workforce big enough to meet industry demand.
The nation does not have enough workers with the skills the AI sector needs, especially those who train or tune large language models, Kuo said during a question-and-answer session.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
Taiwan and industry giants, including Nvidia, discussed the matter and reached an agreement that guarantees Nvidia that at least half of its new hires for such roles would be foreign nationals, he said.
Under the deal, Nvidia is to employ 500 foreign nationals out of its planned workforce of 1,000 engineers to be tasked with chip, system, software and AI design, he said.
Deputy Minister of Education Yeh Ping-cheng (葉丙成) said that creating a workforce for the AI industry has been the ministry’s priority for many years.
The government created 13 research academies, five of which are focused on AI, with 972 people graduating with a master’s or doctoral degrees in AI annually, he said.
Regarding secondary education, Yeh said his ministry plans to unveil the digital education guidelines 3.0 in October.
The new version of the educators’ manual, which would involve principals, teachers and parents in teaching children about AI and information technology, could be implemented as soon as the second semester of this academic year, he said.
The Ministry of Education is considering creating online-based courses for technical subjects, including AI, that high schools might not be equipped to teach, Yeh said.
The plan, dubbed “central kitchen,” would be implemented with the assistance of teachers specializing in information technology education, he said.
Earlier, Chiu said that Taiwan’s leadership in the tech industry rests on advanced semiconductor and AI server manufacturing, not chip design or generative AI.
This deficiency is due to the lack of workers with skills relevant to AI development, Chiu said, adding that the government’s AI plans require within four years a 200,000-strong workforce trained in the appropriate fields.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs should clarify its plan to furnish the projected number of highly skilled workers needed to develop an AI industry, she said.
The Ministry of Education should address its policy on secondary and higher education toward preparing the next generation of Taiwanese for a digital and tech-centric economy, she added.
South Korea is expected to roll out digital technology textbooks for high-school students next year, she said.
The Taipei MRT is open all night tonight following New Year’s Eve festivities, and is offering free rides from nearby Green Line stations. Taipei’s 2025 New Year’s Eve celebrations kick off at Taipei City Hall Square tonight, with performances from the boy band Energy, the South Korean girl group Apink, and singers Gigi Leung (梁詠琪) and Faith Yang (楊乃文). Taipei 101’s annual New Year’s firework display follows at midnight, themed around Taiwan’s Premier12 baseball championship. Estimates say there will be about 200,000 people in attendance, which is more than usual as this year’s celebrations overlap with A-mei’s (張惠妹) concert at Taipei Dome. There are
LOOKING FOR WHEELS: The military is seeking 8x8 single-chassis vehicles to test the new missile and potentially replace the nation’s existing launch vehicles, the source said Taiwan is developing a hypersonic missile based on the Ching Tien (擎天) supersonic cruise missile, and a Czech-made truck has been tentatively selected as its launch vehicle, a source said yesterday. The Ching Tien, formerly known as Yun Feng (雲峰, “Cloud Peak”), is a domestically developed missile with a range of 1,200km to 2,000km being deployed in casemate-type positions as of last month, an official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. The hypersonic missile to be derived from the Ching Tien would feature improved range and a mobile launch platform, while the latter would most likely be a 12x12 single chassis
UP AND DOWN: The route would include a 16.4km underground section from Zuoying to Fongshan and a 9.5km elevated part from Fongshan to Pingtung Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday confirmed a project to extend the high-speed rail (HSR) to Pingtung County through Kaohsiung. Cho made the announcement at a ceremony commemorating the completion of a dome at Kaohsiung Main Station. The Ministry of Transportation and Communications approved the HSR expansion in 2019 using a route that branches off a line from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung’s Zuoying District (左營). The project was ultimately delayed due to a lack of support for the route. The Zuoying route would have trains stop at the Zuoying Station and return to a junction before traveling southward to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝).
Parts of the nation, including in the south, could experience temperatures as low as 7°C early tomorrow morning, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. A strong continental cold air mass coupled with the effect of radiative cooling would bring cold weather to several northern cities and counties, and could even affect areas as far south as Tainan early tomorrow, the CWA said. Keelung, Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan, and Hsinchu, Miaoli and Yilan counties would experience temperatures below 10°C until this evening, according to cold surge advisories issued by the weather agency. The weather across the nation is forecast to remain
RSS