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Cloud Computing and IoT Association in Taiwan (CIAT) held its annual general membership meeting today (Dec. 8). In addition to inviting Vice Premier Cheng Wen-Tsan to present the “2023 Cloud Computing & IoT Innovation Award” and the “11th CIAT Acceleration Program Award”, CIAT also invited Kung Ming-Hsin, Minister of National Development Council, Lin Jyun-Siou, Deputy Director General of Administration for Digital Industry, Chen Mi-Shun, Deputy Director General of Small and Medium Enterprise and Startup Administration to attend the meeting with nearly 300 industrialists. In response to the global technology industry’s trend, “Everything of AI,” the demand for AI servers and AI chips is rising simultaneously. CIAT specially invited heavyweight lecturer Kung Hsiang-Tsung, who is the Willian H. Gates Professor at Harvard University, an Academician of Academia Sinica, and Principal of Taiwan AI Academy, to share his experience on “Distributed Computing for AI”, exploring the technological edges that Taiwan’s server industry can enter.
TrendForce estimates that AI server shipment will reach 1.2 million units in 2023, an annual increase of 38.4%, accounting for nearly 9% of the overall server shipment, and will account for 15% in 2026, simultaneously upwardly revised the 2022~2026 compounded annual growth rate of AI server shipments of 29%. Lee Chih-Kung, Chairman of CIAT and also Chairman of the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and Institute of Information Industry (III), indicated that the most significant breakthrough in the technology industry in the past year was the introduction of the generative AI ChatGPT, which has been visited by more than 1.7 billion users globally, and that Taiwan’s industry should seize the business opportunity and quickly enter the high-end AI server market. Another major trend that deserves attention is that the communications era is moving from 5G to 6G to optical communications, which will provide high-speed network connectivity, high-capacity, low-latency, and low-power broadband communications that can meet the demand from the infrastructure. Two years ago, CIAT joined the Innovative Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN) International Forum, which was formed by NTT, Intel, SONY, and others to promote Taiwan’s industrial sector to grasp the innovative telecommunication technology of all-optical network as early as possible. In addition, CIAT also actively bridges with international communities to help its members develop business opportunities. In the field of ORAN, CIAT leads its member companies to visit NTT East Local 5G Lab. in Japan to get public network business opportunities in addition to linking 5G private networks. Regarding Massive IoT, CIAT links the Japan AHPC Promotion Council to introduce Japan’s new Wi-Fi technology, which has a transmission distance of up to one kilometer. In the field of future satellite space, CIAT invited 16 international space companies, including India and the Czech Republic, to come to Taiwan to look for business opportunities with Taiwan’s industry, accelerating Taiwan’s space manufacturers’ entry into the international space industry chain, and fully realizing the industrial vision of “From the Cloud, into the Universe, and the Space.”
The “Taiwan Cloud Computing and IoT Forum” held in the afternoon continued the theme forum in the morning session. In response to the future AI era of significant computing power demand for complex data, multi-node, ultra-high-speed, low-power consumption distributed cloud computing with AI servers will give rise to a comprehensive range of innovative applications of the IoT. For O-RAN issues, the Association assisted in promoting the industry’s development. Also, it aligned itself with the international community by inviting Sadayuki Abeta, the Vice President of Japan NTT DOCOMO, to share his practical experience in creating a global O-RAN ecosystem and meeting the needs for customer service. Chen Wei-Chao, Digital Director and Senior Vice President of Inventec; Wu Han-Chang, General Manager of ASUS Cloud and Taiwan Web Service, Supervisor of CIAT; Lee Rong-Ruey, Director of the Broadband Network Research Institute of the Chunghwa Telecom Laboratories; and Chang Chee-Wei Chang, Distinguished Professor of National Central University and Consultant of the CIAT Satellite IoT SIG, shared the viewpoints of domestic and foreign experts on issues of generative AI, enterprise innovation, all-optical network, satellite technology, etc., and concluded that the future technological development would be based on “Distributed Artificial Intelligence,” focusing on applications such as intelligent manufacturing, smart agriculture, satellite image recognition, environment sensing, and smart city, etc.
In the “Cloud Computing & IoT Innovation Award,” a major annual industry-government-research collaboration event of governmental organizations, this year, three governmental organizations were awarded the Outstanding Application Award, namely, the “One-Finger Inquiry for Real Estate Information” by the Land Administration Bureau of Taichung City Government in conjunction with Systex Corporation, the “New Taipei City Emergency Management Information System” by Fire Department, New Taipei City Government in conjunction with Taiwan Research Institute and the “Three-Dimensional Alert Display System for Flash Flood Hot Spots in Mountainous Areas” by National Science and Technology Center for Disaster Reduction in conjunction with Global Power Technology. The “CIAT Accelerator Program in Taiwan” created by CIAT and StarFab Accelerator is entering its 11th year this year, has assisted 168 start-ups and large corporations in co-creative cooperation, and has made a fruitful achievement of accumulative fund-raising of more than NT$3.9 billion in the past 11 years. The eight corporate mentors of the CIAT Accelerator Program include Far EasTone, NVIDIA, Hwacom, Syscom System, Inventec, Delta Electronics, Chunghwa Telecom, and Industrial Technology Research Institute. In the end, “Moldintel” and its corporate mentor “Delta Electronics” won the first place of the System Innovation Award, “Choozmo” and its corporate mentor “NVIDIA” won the second place of the System Innovation Award, and “Clarity Wind” and its corporate mentor “Syscom System” won the third place of the System Innovation Award. In recent years, StarFab has also established the “Tech-Startup Japan Award” specifically for Japanese market expansion. This year, CIAT Accelerator also combined the results of creative cooperation between 8 CIAT mentors and 10 startups to obtain the intention of a 50-million investment.
