Taiwan aims to increase computing power more than sevenfold by 2029

Taipei, Feb. 6 (CNA) Taiwan plans to boost its national computing power from the current 160 petaflops to around 1,200 petaflops by 2029, a 7.5-fold increase over the next four years, the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) said Thursday.

At a Cabinet press briefing, Tsai Hung-yin (蔡宏營), president of the NSTC-affiliated National Applied Research Laboratories (NARLabs), said the goal would include a boost of nearly 500 petaflops developed by the government, a huge increase from the current 16 petaflops.

The petaflop, or peta floating-point operations per second, is a unit of measurement for computing performance, particularly in the context of supercomputers.

In the meantime, the private sector is expected to contribute over 500 petaflops to this goal, according to NSTC, the top government agency responsible for science and technology affairs.

Citing the November 2024 data from the TOP500 project, Tsai said Taiwan ranked 11th in the organization's global supercomputer rankings, with a combined value of maximum achievable performance of approximately 104 petaflops.

The United States topped the list with 6,475 petaflops, followed by Japan (940 petaflops) and Italy (849 petaflops), Tsai said.

The NSTC has expressed its ambition to expand Taiwan's overall computing power by upgrading high-performance computing systems and improving the energy efficiency of those facilities.

Last October, the agency set a target for Taiwan to rank in the top three in Asia and the top 10 globally for supercomputing by 2028.

According to NSTC officials, the government currently has five supercomputers, with three operated by the NARLabs and two by the Central Weather Administration.

Supercomputers are used in various areas, including weather forecasting, the research and development of new drugs and vaccines, and disease diagnosis.

They will also play an important role in the government's efforts to expand the development and application of artificial intelligence across different industries in Taiwan, Tsai said.