In the last few years, generative artificial intelligence (AI) has exploded in popularity, spawning a plethora of diverse new applications and services with profound and wide-ranging implications for the future. Generative AI is a strategic technology of vital importance to a nation's development, but it is also increasingly being adopted by industries as a tool for diverse innovation. For this reason, national governments and technology giants alike are pouring resources into the development of large language models (LLMs).
Taiwan is among the world's foremost semiconductor powers. In order to maintain this key strategic position, the nation must integrate silicon chips with contemporary trends in AI development and expand AI infrastructure. Building a Taiwan-specific LLM is one of the most vital tasks in this endeavor.
In April 2023, the government initiated the Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine (TAIDE) project to produce a generative AI chatbot with Taiwanese features and traditional Chinese character support. TAIDE is optimized for writing articles, letters and summaries, as well as two-way Chinese-English translation. TAIDE will also help to popularize generative AI applications and drive forward development in related industries.
Looking to the future, the government will continue to closely monitor international trends in generative AI and will introduce new technologies in a timely manner, so that TAIDE is able to keep up with the pace of evolution and become the benchmark LLM for Taiwan. This administration will also assist in promoting TAIDE as an innovative application for use in both the public and private sectors, to ensure the nation remains competitive within the field of generative AI, and help turn Taiwan into an "AI island."