London, June 12 (CNA) Taiwan is in the process of developing its own generative AI system that will be capable of creating a wide variety of data based on prompts from users, Taiwan's National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) chief said Monday in the United Kingdom.
The tool, known as "Trustworthy AI dialog Engine" (TAIDE), will feature "Taiwanese characteristics" and operate in traditional Chinese, Wu Tsung-tsong (吳政忠) told CNA in an exclusive interview during his June 9-12 trip, during which he visited Taiwanese startups attending the London Tech Week event.
However, unlike ChatGPT, a comprehensive AI tool developed by American company OpenAI, the TAIDE will focus primarily on providing customized AI applications to different government agencies, Wu said.
The council is now collaborating with both the public and private sectors to develop the first-generation model of TAIDE, with MediaTek Inc., AsusTeK Computer Inc. and Taiwan Web Service Corp. among the companies involved, Wu said.
A law that regulates AI practices is also being drafted and should be ready for submission to the Legislature before it starts its next session in September, according to Wu.
On his visit to the U.K., the NSTC chief said AI is one of several areas in which Taiwan hopes to collaborate with Great Britain, along with internet security, space technology and precision medicine.
One opportunity to advance that collaboration may come this autumn, when the U.K. hosts the first major global summit on AI safety, an event Taiwan hopes to attend.
According to the British government, the summit will consider the risks of AI, including frontier systems, and discuss how they can be mitigated through internationally coordinated action.
"The UK is a world-leader in AI -- ranking third behind the U.S. and China," it said in a press release, adding that its AI sector already contributes £3.7 billion (US$4.6 billion) to the U.K. economy and employs 50,000 people across the country.
