The National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) yesterday said it would lead the development of Taiwan’s sovereign artificial intelligence (AI) by boosting the combined computing speed of the nation’s supercomputers to 480 petaflops by 2029.
AI sovereignty refers to a country’s full autonomy over AI technologies and infrastructure, including the development of models, control and protection of data, and ensuring computing efficiency, NSTC Deputy Minister Lin Faa-jeng (林法正) said.
The NSTC’s goal is to reduce Taiwan’s dependence on external technologies and services, he said.
Photo: Wu Po-hsuan, Taipei Times
Last year, 80 percent of corporate chief executive officers recognized AI’s influence, while 57 percent included AI in their development strategies, Lin said, citing data from Gartner, a US technological research and consulting firm.
Taiwan’s domestic demand for AI is increasing every year, including large-scale language model training, climate change research, healthcare innovations, smart manufacturing and integrated circuit layout, he said, adding that the council has commissioned the National Center for High-Performance Computing to procure supercomputers to reach the necessary computing speed for AI, he added.
One type of supercomputer is driven by regular CPUs, including Taiwania 3 and Forerunner 1, which can reach 2.7 petaflops and 3.5 petaflops respectively, he said.
Another type is GPU-powered supercomputers such as Taiwania 2 and the Trustworthy AI Dialog Engine (TAIDE) language model, capable of 5.9 petaflops and 3.8 petaflops respectively, Lin said.
Cloud services and technology platforms would also be built to promote Taiwan’s academic research development, industrial applications and international competitiveness in the AI field, he added.
Additionally, the council plans to launch a scheme to construct next-generation high-speed host computers under the Taiwan Chip-based Industrial Innovation Program, Lin said.
The scheme aims for supercomputers’ combined computing speed to reach 280 petaflops by 2028, he added.
More AI supercomputers would be installed under the “Southern Silicon Valley” project to add another 200 petaflops from next year to 2029, Lin said.
The combined computing speed of supercomputers would thus reach 480 petaflops within the next five years, he added.
ChatGPT has shown the power of generative AI and the importance of sovereignty over the technology since its launch in 2022, he said.
Sixty to 70 percent of mainstream AI models are trained in English, and most of the ones in Mandarin use simplified Chinese, Lin said.
The construction of TAIDE would ensure the nation’s competitiveness by developing a model in Traditional Chinese, he said.
The center would not only create high-efficiency supercomputers based on GPUs, but also build a reliable cloud data environment, ensuring the safety of sensitive medical data, such as people’s genomes or health records, Lin added.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS