TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – The world’ most valuable tech giant joins Microsoft and AWS to tap into Taiwan’s talent pool to pursue promising developments of artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
Google Taiwan announced a plan on Monday to launch a project that is set to establish a new research and development unit in Taiwan dedicated to artificial intelligence. The project will be recruiting local talent to meet its ambitious AI projects, but the number of the new positions to be created has yet to be announced.
The company said on Monday that the newly announced plan is set to be the largest of its kind in Taiwan since it established an office in Taipei in 2006.
Taiwan has some of the best universities in the world when it comes to science, information technology, engineering and mathematics. Last September, the U.S. tech giant announced a plan to acquire HTC smartphone Original Design Manufacture (ODM) assets for US$1.1 billion (NT$32.07 billion) and the deal includes a R&D team of 2,000. The deal was completed in late January.
Taiwan has been playing a crucial part in the development of major IT applications for Google, from Android to Chrome. Google worked with HTC to build up the world’s first Android smartphone and several other Android devices.
The island country is also home to Google’s largest overseas Chrome OS R&D center. In 2013, the tech giant pumped big bucks into its data center operation in Changhua County, which is said to be the largest and most eco-friendly in Asia.
Not long ago, Microsoft announced a plan to spend up to NT$1 billion in two years to create an AI R&D center, which is expected to recruit 200 people for the new center over the next five years.
Amazon Web Services (AWS), a subsidiary of Amazon.com, signed an MOU with the New Taipei City Government to set up a joint innovation center. The company will provide its cloud-based access and technical assistance and training for Taiwanese cloud computing startups. The new AWS center will be based in the Taipei Far Eastern Telecom Park in Banqiao District, New Taipei City.
