Taiwan plans to boost its national computing power from the current 160 petaflops to around 1,200 petaflops by 2029. This represents a 7.5-fold increase over the next few years, the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) announced Thursday. At a Cabinet press briefing, Tsai Hung-yin, president of the NSTC-affiliated National Applied Research Laboratories (NARLabs), emphasized that this ambitious goal includes nearly 500 petaflops developed by the government.
This is a significant jump from the current 16 petaflops. According to NSTC, the top government agency responsible for science and technology affairs, the private sector is also expected to contribute over 500 petaflops to meet this objective. According to the November 2024 data from the TOP500 project, Tsai noted that Taiwan ranked 11th globally in supercomputer performance, with a combined maximum achievable performance of approximately 104 petaflops.
Boosting Taiwan’s computing power
The United States led the rankings with 6,475 petaflops, followed by Japan at 940 petaflops and Italy at 849 petaflops. The NSTC has expressed its ambition to enhance Taiwan’s overall computing capacity by upgrading high-performance computing systems and increasing the energy efficiency of those facilities.
The agency aims to have Taiwan rank among the top three in Asia and the top 10 globally for supercomputing by 2028. According to NSTC officials, the Taiwanese government operates five supercomputers, three managed by NARLabs and two by the Central Weather Administration. These supercomputers are employed in diverse fields, including weather forecasting, the research and development of new drugs and vaccines, and disease diagnosis.
Moreover, Tsai added that they are crucial to the government’s initiative to expand the development and application of artificial intelligence (AI) across various industries in Taiwan.
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