Taiwan joins research program to boost AI development

台灣加入研究計劃促進AI發展

Taiwan Semiconductor Research Institute signs with British firm to accelerate artificial intelligence research


TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The Taiwan Semiconductor Research Institute (TSRI) has joined a new program launched by British semiconductor company Arm to accelerate the development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology in Taiwan.

During a press conference on Tuesday (Nov. 24), TSRI, one of the eight institutes of the National Applied Research Laboratories (NARLabs), announced that it has signed up for the Arm Flexible Access (AFA) to Research Program. It said the program will allow Taiwanese researchers to experiment and undertake AI projects with a wide range of CPU processors and software produced by Arm.

NARLabs President Wu Kuang-Chong (吳光鐘) emphasized that the semiconductor industry is the moving force of Taiwan's economy and that the government has invested significantly in the cultivation of talents in the field. It said that access to Arm's research model will boost the country's innovation capabilities and its competitiveness in the global market.

Meanwhile, Arm Taiwan President CK Tseng (曾志光) explained that the AFA program is designed to help international academics achieve research success by providing them with low-cost access to Arm's IP portfolio, support, tools, and training. He added that the TSRI will also receive the Ethos-N78 premium neural processing unit (NPU) through Tuesday's signing and become the first research institute in the world to do so, reported ETtoday.

Since the AFA program was first introduced last summer, more than 60 research institutions, including the University of Cambridge and Harvard University, have signed up. Users have praised the program for its simplicity, saying that it has helped them focus on creating new innovations, according to Cambridge Network.