IfG.CC -
Institute for eGovernment

As Taiwan’s international space remains constrained, formal government-to-government cooperation is often infeasible. Consequently, the utilization of alternative channels of international engagement, such as track II diplomacy or subnational diplomacy, remains key for Taiwan’s idiosyncratic, people-oriented strategy for global engagement.

On the quinquennial of the New Southbound Policy, and amid a newfound openness between Taiwan and Europe, it is timely to revisit the question of international subjectivity of Taiwanese cities and consider the role they can play in the nation’s quest to expand its international space.

AI City plays a key role in the next phase of Taiwan’s AI development. Following Taiwan's proven track record in AI hardware component manufacturing and information system parts, our next initiative is to demonstrate how cities can become real-world platforms for AI innovation. Under a sovereign AI framework, AI City brings together hardware manufacturers and software companies to create a new AI ecosystem that drives both urban transformation and industrial upgrading.

This vision will be showcased at the 2026 Smart City Summit & Expo and Net Zero City Expo (SCSE 2026), taking place in Taipei and Kaohsiung in mid-to-late March. The event will feature the world’s first AI City Pavilion, led by the ASUS Group, Foxconn, and the Taiwan Smart City Alliance. With our partners from government, civic organizations, and industry alliances, the pavilion will present the concept of sovereign AI, system architecture, and technical applications.

“Our system encompasses medical facility and patient record reporting, health smart card issuing and the establishment and management of medical kiosks and telehealth services for remote areas,” Chiu said.

The minister’s remarks came during a luncheon address at the General Assembly of the World Medical Association May 17 in Geneva.

When the system is inaugurated, passengers who register their biometric data in advance will be able to avoid long lines by using the automated immigration gates at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Taipei Songshan Airport and Kaohsiung International Airport.

The projects will help make government information available to the public and stimulate innovative industries, Chu said.

Chu, who also serves as deputy convener of the Board of Science and Technology under the Executive Yuan, made the comments at a BOST meeting on open data promotion strategies.

Chiu said the country’s health system incorporates medical facility and patient record reporting and health smart card issuing. Efforts were likewise made to establish medical kiosks and tele-health services for remote areas.

These smart cards carried patient medical information such as prescriptions and medication that causes allergic reactions since 2004,” he said during a luncheon address at the General Assembly of the World Medical Association (WMA) early May in Geneva.

Trading house prepares pilot programs, angling for slice of government investment

Japanese trading house Itochu is joining a smart city project in the southern Taiwan city of Tainan, trialing AI systems for transportation and energy data management with an eye toward winning bigger business.

Itochu was the sole contract winner among bids on a smart city project in the Shalun area being developed by the Tainan government and others. The early-stage contract is worth 10.8 million New Taiwan dollars ($332,000).

Taiwan is continuing to assist St Lucia ‎with the financing of a major project aimed at expanding access to technology across the country.

Taiwanese Ambassador James Chang, Friday presented Prime Minister Kenny Anthony with a cheque of EC$1.2 million (One EC dollar =US$0.37 cents) which will go towards the completion of two new community access centers.

The IT access centres will enhance the southern communities of Micoud and Vieux Fort by providing centrally located facilities for the access to Information and Communications Technology (ICT.)

Face recognition is not only the most talked about application of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies but also a key AI strength indicator of the tech heavyweights in the global arena. A face recognition application takes in a database containing millions of faces, based on which a machine learning model is trained for use in access control or attendance management systems. It is growingly applied by government agencies, banking institutions and service industries.

CB Insights' Artificial Intelligence Trends 2019 report identifies face recognition and edge computing as the two major trends with the most market strength and high industry adoption, even surpassing autonomous driving at the center of the automotive market's attention. The disruptive innovations to be enabled by face recognition applications are exciting. Papago chairman Liang-Yi Chien is well aware of how rapidly face recognition technologies and applications expand in the B2B market segment.

The Marcos administration will embark on a smart city project linking Metro Manila with state agencies to improve disaster response and traffic management.

Officials tackled on Tuesday the Metro Manila Smart City Infrastructure for Network Resilience project during a sectoral meeting led by President Marcos at Malacañang.

“RDEC programs have contributed significantly to the process,” Chu said. “We will continue working with other agencies to bridge the digital divide.”

Chu made the remarks during an event in Chiayi County marking the anniversary of an RDEC program promoting Internet usage. This initiative saw 535 laptops delivered to 16 public libraries and elementary schools around Taiwan, including Chiayi, Nantou, Pintung, Yilan and Yunlin counties.

Now on its 11th year, the SCSE provides a platform to promote Taiwan's range of smart city and net-zero technologies and innovations.

Jointly organized by the Taipei Computer Association (TCA), the Kaohsiung City government, and the National Development Council (NDC), the 11th Smart City Summit and Expo (SCSE) held March 19–22 at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center Hall 2, and March 21–23 at the Kaohsiung Exhibition Center put into the spotlight Taiwan’s smart city and net-zero city solutions developments over the past decade, and how Taiwan is collaborating with countries worldwide to advance smart city and net-zero transition initiatives.

Taoyuan, the gateway to Taiwan, has the largest airport in the nation in Taoyuan International Airport.

As such, Taoyuan was this year a co-organizer of the Smart City Summit and Expo, hosting a Bilateral Gov x Biz Webinars with the City of Prague in the Czech Republic, Nigeria's International Trade Facilitation Association and the City of Medellín, Colombia, for cross-border networking.

As cities worldwide embrace smart technology, Taiwanese telecom companies are at the forefront of integrating millions of smart devices to redefine urban living. Far EasTone Telecommunications Co. (遠傳電信) is leading the charge, utilizing Internet of Things (IoT) and big data to tackle traffic congestion and energy consumption, according to Far EasTone President Chee Ching (井琪).

"Far EasTone is a telecom company, so having this connectivity is our advantage, right? And that's really our core competence," Chee told TVBS World Taiwan. "IoT definitely is what we establish ourselves as the core technology. And, on top of it, once you have things connected, you collect the data, and the data provides insight for us to do big data analytics. And then with that, you can enable AI on it."

Diabetic patients have a higher risk of developing diabetic retinopathy, and regular checkups are required every year to reduce the risk of blindness

According to the Diabetes Atlas report published by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) at the end of 2019, the number of diabetic patients around the world reached 460 million in 2019 and is expected to rise to 570 million by 2030. According to Taiwan Diabetes Yearbook 2019 published by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) of Taiwan, the aging population, and changes in lifestyles and dietary patterns led to the increase in the number of diabetic patients to over 2.3 million in 2019 with the prevalence rate of over 11%.

As an integral part of civilization, transportation is an important component to technological transformation. Smart parking and Augmented Reality (AR) navigation are two aspects of transportation that are being discussed around the world. Given Taiwan's strong technology foundation, it has also incorporated these new concepts and developed its own business models within transportation.

Usually, drivers spend a lot of time searching for parking spaces. This is not only time-consuming and frustrating for drivers, but it also produces avoidable greenhouse gas emissions. In response, the government of Tainan launched Tainan Smart Parking app and installed geomagnetic sensors in parking spots to obtain real-time information on roadside parking. With the assistance of the smart parking system, drivers can save 15.09% of time spent on parking. Even better, it could reduce CO2 emissions by 14.97% per city.

The agreement, which was officially signed by Taiwan and St Lucia on Wednesday, is part of a push by the government to “make strides towards modernizing its operations and processes for increased public access to and availability of services,” according to a release.