Taiwan eyes more collaboration between high tech, health care sectors

Taipei, Aug. 26 (CNA) Taiwan's high tech and health care sectors should pursue greater integration to position the country as a global leader in the field, government officials said at an annual biotech meeting in Taipei on Monday.

Wu Cheng-wen (吳誠文), head of the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), said the two sectors are both among the best in the world, but they have developed independently with little integration in the past.

The Bio Taiwan Committee (BTC) has focused on trying to figure out how to leverage Taiwan's high-tech strengths in the health care, biotech and pharmaceutical sectors, Wu said, but he felt more needed to be done.

"I want to urge our two industries to not only continue to further develop but also work toward integration," Wu said.

He suggested that President Lai Ching-te's (賴清德) pledge to turn Taiwan into an "artificial intelligence (AI) island" and pursue a "Healthy Taiwan" could present an opportunity to move in that direction.

Wu said the three-day annual meeting under the BTC, which was set up by the Executive Yuan in 2005, would focus on two related issues: how to use government resources to ensure continuous research and development in the two sectors while also investing funds to integrate the applications they develop.

Also speaking at the meeting, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said the central government will increase its spending on technological development in 2025 by 14.9 percent from 2024 to NT$146.6 billion (US$4.6 billion).

Cho said some integration between the high tech and health care sectors has already occurred, especially by medical institutions that have made progress in the area of smart medicine.

He highlighted the use of the high tech sector's strength in manufacturing and integrated circuits to develop AI and data-driven smart medicine for the health care industry.

Meanwhile, in his speech titled "Rethink Smart Health with AI," Quanta Computer Chairman Barry Lam (林百里) talked about "Quanta Open Care AI (QOCA)," an open platform consisting of integrated smart technology solutions designed to optimize individuals' health care experiences.

Quanta has promoted QOCA to health care industries since 2019, and now sees about 76 medical institutions use QOCA products, according to Lam's PowerPoint presentation.

Lam emphasized that smart medicine must adopt an open platform, allowing users to develop their own applications and use not only Quanta's equipment but also other devices.

One example of the platform's potential, Lam said, was AI resilient telemedicine, an application of the QOCA 2.0 AI Resilient Medicine Platform.

It can link to a command center that uses AI to determine the best medical facility for treating injured patients during disasters, based on the differing medical resources available at each clinic or hospital.