"Taipei-1, powered by NVIDIA, is also contributing to the 'Sovereign AI' driving the second wave of AI revolution."

What is "Sovereign AI," the second wave of AI revolution promoted by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang? Is Taiwan actively involved in it?

What is Sovereign AI?

According to a report by Yahoo News, Huang Renxun stated to the media at the end of last year that the world is undergoing a second wave of AI. He believes that from tech giants to AI startups and the entire tech industry, they were the main drivers of the first wave; however, the second wave of AI will be propelled by governments worldwide, as they are beginning to realize that every country and region needs to establish its own artificial intelligence, known as Sovereign AI.

Generative AI caused a stir over a year ago, not only helping people eliminate mundane tasks and write programs but also quickly generating various types of creative content. However, it also brought about issues such as job loss, spreading fake news, and even being used by malicious individuals for criminal activities, making countries aware that this technology must be managed and regulated.

The practical goal of Sovereign AI is:

To develop AI technology domestically, use citizens' data, train large language models in the national language, and create an AI model that aligns with the country's values.

Developing Sovereign AI to Avoid "Cut-off" Impacts

The goal of Sovereign AI is to ensure that countries can control critical data, technology, expertise, and infrastructure through the development of the AI industry, reduce reliance on AI technology from other countries, and strengthen the country's autonomy in the field of AI to avoid various "cut-off" impacts.

As seen with OpenAI terminating API services to China previously, the U.S. aims to prevent its technology from assisting China in developing advanced technology and dominating the global market by prohibiting the trade of certain AI for specific end uses and systems trained with a certain amount of computational power. This indicates that the U.S.-China rivalry has extended to the AI industry.

The development of Sovereign AI can not only boost the economy, talent, and drive other high-tech dependent industries but also provide security. Just like many companies need their AI training models to prevent the leakage of commercial secrets. However, some are concerned that the development of Sovereign AI may become a catalyst for various disputes such as trade and intellectual property.

Taiwan's Most Powerful AI Supercomputer Taipei-1

Amid this wave of AI, besides partnering with NVIDIA to form a complete supply chain, does Taiwan have the capability to develop its own Sovereign AI?

The generative AI service platform "Dage," launched by MediaTek, is officially named MediaTek DaVinci. Initially developed for internal use by MediaTek to boost productivity and ensure data security, it later evolved into a generative AI service platform that external companies can adopt. According to a report by Business Next, a key feature of Dage is its understanding of Traditional Chinese, supporting the MR BreeXe large language model developed by MediaTek's Innovation Base, along with other large language models. This allows Dage to understand and process up to forty thousand words in Traditional Chinese. MR BreeXe was trained on the supercomputer Taipei-1 established by NVIDIA in Taiwan.

"Taipei-1" is Taiwan's most powerful AI supercomputer, combining artificial intelligence and digital twin computing. Invested and built by NVIDIA, it is located in the Kaohsiung Software Technology Park. In the recent global Top 500 supercomputer rankings, it ranked 38th in performance. After discussions with NVIDIA, the Ministry of Economic Affairs agreed to provide some high-speed computing resources of Taipei-1 for free to Taiwan's academia and industry for research and development purposes.

The AI boom is in full swing, as computational power equals national power, making Sovereign AI the biggest chip on the global stage. It appears that Taiwan is actively participating in this wave of AI!