Tech
CIAT Reveals Key Technology Advantages of Taiwan’s Server Industry
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.
Apple , opens new tab plans to spend more than $30 billion under a multi-year chip supply deal with Broadcom, bolstering its U.S. sourcing as President Donald Trump’s administration pushes to expand domestic chip manufacturing.
Broadcom shares rose more than 4%, while Apple shares were down marginally.
Apple said on Wednesday the deal, which was struck earlier this week and runs through 2031, covers FBAR filters – or radio-frequency chips used for wireless connectivity in its devices – that it had been developing with Broadcom since at least 2023.
Broadcom will invest $1.5 billion to expand its Fort Collins, Colorado, factory under the deal, which Apple said would result in the production of at least 15 billion chips and support its work with the Trump administration to source more components domestically.
“The cutting-edge components built in Fort Collins are essential to delivering the incredible performance and connectivity our customers expect, and we’re proud to deepen our investments in U.S.-based suppliers that share our commitment to excellence and innovation,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said in a statement.
“We’re grateful to the president and his administration for supporting important projects like this.”
In August 2025, Apple raised its U.S. investment commitment to $600 billion over four years, adding $100 billion to a previously announced spending plan.
China is planning to allow the country’s top AI companies to buy a limited number of Nvidia’s, opens new tab H200 chips, the Information reported on Wednesday, citing two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
Chinese officials have told Alibaba, opens new tab, ByteDance and DeepSeek in recent weeks that they may soon receive permission to buy some H200 chips, the report said.
Shares of Nvidia rose 1% after the report.
The chip giant did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment, nor did the U.S. commerce department, which oversees exports of advanced AI chips overseas.
China’s commerce ministry also did not immediately respond to a request for comment, while Alibaba, ByteDance and DeepSeek did not respond outside of regular business hours.
The U.S. government has allowed Nvidia to sell its advanced H200 chips to China, and licensed about 10 Chinese firms to buy the chips. However, Chinese officials, keen to nurture domestic suppliers, have withheld approval so far.
Reuters reported in March that Nvidia had won Beijing’s approval to sell the chips to China, citing sources, and around the same time, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang also told CNBC that the company had clearance from China.
Beijing is still determining the exact number of Nvidia chips to approve, and it could amount to fewer than 200,000 in total, the Information said, adding that was less than half of what the companies requested earlier this year.
Last month, Reuters exclusively reported that Nvidia told Chinese clients its new “Vera” central processors for AI data centres could be available as soon as August and that they can begin placing orders.
Nvidia’s market share in China has effectively fallen to zero, Huang said in October, hurt by U.S. export controls and Beijing’s push for self-reliance in key technologies.
The potential shift in China’s stance underscores the growing computing capacity crunch that the country’s tech companies are facing.
A team of software testers found that Australian social media platforms did not request age proof for any of 50 accounts that declared themselves to be 16, a result that leaves the country’s world-first under-16 ban “ineffective” at the most basic screening stage, according to a study seen by Reuters.
Since December, platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube have been required to bar people under 16 and take “reasonable steps” to verify age, with regulators recommending multiple layered checks. But the new research, conducted by those who advised the nationwide curb, shows that the initial vetting step, which estimates a user’s age from general online activity, is failing to flag young people for tougher verification.
The testers, who last year trialled age-assurance software on more than 1,000 Australians, opened 50 new accounts after the law took effect and set the age as 16. None of the platforms asked for additional proof, the researchers told Reuters. The findings highlight a flaw that has been largely overlooked while public debate has focused on photo-based age-estimation tools.
The ban’s rollout has been widely criticised after surveys indicated that most under-16s still access the platforms. The government last month doubled the maximum fine and warned of possible court action against tech giants, accusing them of setting the system up to fail. Platforms have countered that they are simply following the regulator’s guidance, which prioritises low-friction checks and prevents reliance on government ID alone due to privacy concerns.
Some advisers to the original trial said they had repeatedly warned that the testing process ignored real-world circumvention, including minors entering false birthdates. “We did want to talk about circumvention, but we kept on being told that that wasn’t part of the actual trial,” Colm Gannon of the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children told Reuters. A youth digital rights academic involved in a longer-term study of the ban said more impressive results might emerge once platforms move to age-inference methods later in the year. The regulator maintains that the recommended layered approach, if implemented correctly, ensures no single point of failure.
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