AI Taiwan

The Taiwan AI Center of Excellence (Taiwan AICoE) tasked with developing Taiwan’s artificial intelligence (AI) capability was officially opened on Tuesday.

At the launch ceremony in Taipei, National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) Minister Wu Tsung-tsong (吳政忠) said that AI applications have advanced rapidly and become an integral part of everyday life since the government set 2017 as “year zero” for Taiwan’s AI industry.

The advent of U.S.-developed ChatGPT caught China and Japan off guard and has also presented new challenges such as questions regarding ethics, rule of law and human rights associated with the use of AI, Wu said.

The NSTC is vigorously formulating ethical and general principles in an intergovernmental effort to codify terms governing the use of AI so as to bring Taiwan in line with global AI initiatives and leverage Taiwan’s international influence in the field of AI governance, Wu said.

He expressed hope that the center, which is run by the NSTC, will serve as a platform to streamline efforts by relevant government agencies seeking to formulate rules governing AI applications and facilitate collaborations on international AI projects.

Tsai Zse-hong (蔡志宏), head of the Taiwan AICoE, said the center will seek to initiate international collaborations on strengthening core AI technologies, create an AI talent pool in the Asia-Pacific region by tapping into leading international AI institutions, and join “human-centered” AI organizations to forge reliable partnerships in the AI realm with like-minded countries.

The Taiwan AICoE is in talks with international institutions over several draft projects and will serve as Taiwan’s sole point of contact for international projects as well as providing guidance on the planning and development of local AI industry, Tsai said.

Asked by reporters about progress on the NSTC’s plan to develop a “Taiwanese ChatGPT” for use by the public, Tsai said the NSTC is close to putting together a team to collate data suited to Taiwan’s society and culture, at which point it will move on to testing such software, adding that Wu has demanded that the project start to deliver results by the end of this year.

Various phased expansions are planned for the AI-powered Taiwania 2 supercomputer developed by the National Applied Research Laboratories in order to accommodate the project and create a Taiwanese ChatGPT, he said.

Current efforts will focus on testing relating to computing power and datasets, which the more than 2,000 graphics processing units (GPU) should be able to cover, he said.

Date: 2023-03-28
Source: Focus Taiwan