Weekly Roundup: Key Developments in Tech, Politics, and Global Affairs in Taiwan
23 August 2024
Technology
Nvidia upgrades AI weather prediction technology to enhance timeliness and help disaster response
After launching the generative AI model CorrDiff to help Taiwan predict the regional impact of typhoons, Nvidia have recently announced the launch of a new model called StormCast to make highly accurate predictions of upcoming storms to help disaster emergencies.
StormCast adds an autoregressive prediction function to CorrDiff, which provides more frequent forecast updates based on past weather data. CorrDiff has increased the precision of Taiwan’s atmospheric data by 12.5 times and reduced energy consumption by 3,000 times.
In the early stages of StormCast applications it has improved in weather forecasting 2 to 4 hours in advance. In the United States alone, they cause more than 150 billion U.S. dollars (approximately NT$4,845 billion) in losses every year.
Source: SETN News
https://www.setn.com/News.aspx?NewsID=1517399&utm_campaign=viewallnews
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The world's most powerful malicious programs are targeting Taiwan! What is an AI copycat?
After the outbreak of AI, global streaming fraud advertisements have increased by 60%. Recently a British engineering company suffered an AI fraud tragedy. A DeepFake technology was used to instruct real employees to transfer money, causing the company to lose 20 million british pounds (approximately NT$830 million).
According to CheckPoint Research, Taiwan’s average number of attacks per week ranks the highest in the Asia-Pacific during the second quarter of this year. Experts are optimistic to crack new attack programs from the more virus codes being discovered, forecasting Taiwan’s information security industry to exceed NT$100 billion by 2026.
Source: Business Weekly
https://www.businessweekly.com.tw/focus/indep/6016165
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Commercial AI PCs are coming! Intel works with partners to push latest devices and applications
Intel joined hands with 11 partners in Taiwan to showcase more than 20 commercial AI PCs equipped with Intel Core Ultra processors to help users improve productivity and enhance security during the AI PC platform and application briefing held by Intel.
The latest application use cases include AI noise reduction, image editing, image generation, eye tracking, etc. The Intel Core Ultra processor is specifically designed for AI PCs, it integrates CPU, GPU, and NPU architectures for the very first time in order to deliver excellent performance.
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Politics & Business
Former Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda: Taiwan is an important partner and support for Taiwan has no partisan differences
Shigeru Ishiba, candidate for the new president of Japan’s ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party has reiterated his support for Taiwan. Yoshihiko Noda, Constitutional Democratic Party top advisor and former Japanese Prime Minister stated that Taiwan is an important partner that shares basic values such as democracy, freedom, human rights, and the rule of law.
Yoshihoko Noda emphasized that Japan should actively let the United States and the international community to understand the current situation in the Taiwan Strait and East Asia.
Source: Liberty Times News
https://news.ltn.com.tw/news/politics/breakingnews/4775816
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China weaponizes trade Lai Ching Te: Democracies around the world unite to resist
Lai Ching Te stated that China will weaponize trade, launch hybrid warfare to infiltrate countries, and use the internet for authoritarian technological expansion to bring economic and trade pressure to countries such as Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Lithuania, and Canada.
Lai Ching Te once again proposed the “Four Pillars Action Plan for Peace” and to build economic security, Taiwan’s share of overseas investment in China dropped to 11.4% last year, a record low. Taiwan's overseas exports to China dropped to 31.2% during the first half of this year.
Source: Liberty Times News
https://news.ltn.com.tw/news/politics/breakingnews/4775373
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Opinion submission: Lai Ching Te’s energy policy “2025 hairpin bend”
Lai Ching Te stated that there are no simple “right or wrong” answers for the question of “anti-nuclear” or “pro-nuclear”. With the increase in electricity consumption, Taiwan’s power shortage problem will become more serious. However the DPP insisted on demolishing the fourth nuclear plant that cost NT$330 billion to build.
Under the influence of many global factors like the world's carbon emission policy, restarting nuclear energy to increase the proportion of nuclear power is currently the only reasonable and effective solution. It is clear that Taiwan’s energy policy will undergo a U-turn.
Source: Storm News
https://www.storm.mg/article/5224518
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International
Credit card giant Mastercard is laying off 3% of its global workforce, affecting nearly a thousand people! The wave of layoffs has hit the financial industry, will market inflation be the main reason?
A wave of layoffs have recently entered the financial industry. Mastercard, a well-known credit card company, has announced its plans to lay off 3% of its employees globally, which totals to approximately 1,000 employees despite having an 14% increase of net income rising to $6.3 billion in the second-quarter which exceeds Wall Street expectations.
Mastercard CEO, Michael stated that this decision is mostly based on the uncertainty of inflation and interest rates in the current global economy. Recently Mastercard has been actively launching new products. In early August, it cooperated with a blockchain platform, Metamask and a cryptocurrency payment company, Baanx to issue a digital currency-to-fiat card.
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Four working days and three days off, pay cut! Is China making a strange move to control the unemployment rate?
Some Chinese companies are changing their working days to be 4 working days and 3 days off schedule. But this comes with a salary reduction, an office worker had his working hours changed and his monthly income reduced by RMB1,000 from RMB6,000 (approximately US$840).
Ms. Yan, the human resources director of a multinational company who was dispatched from China to Singapore pointed out that Chinese companies are implementing the four-day work system to save costs.
Source: SETN News
https://www.setn.com/News.aspx?NewsID=1519008&utm_campaign=viewallnews
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In response to potential threats from future quantum computers, the U.S. government approves three new encryption algorithms
The National Institute of Standards and Technology of the U.S. The Department of Commerce has recently approved three new encryption algorithms to anticipate the threat of future quantum computer threats.
Google’s quantum computer, Sycamore only took 200 seconds to solace a calculation that would take existing supercomputers 10,000 years to complete. According to estimates, there is a 33% to 54% chance that a quantum computer dedicated to cracking passwords will appear in the next 15 years.