To promote smart machinery and smart city and accelerate the industrial upgrade and development of digital technology, Taichung City Government entered into an MOU with Industrial Technology Research Institute and Microsoft in Singapore today (January 19) in the hope of building a world-class smart machinery park that accelerates the smart development in Greater Taichung. Mayor of Taichung City Lin Chia-lung indicated that Taichung City already has a demonstration area for smart machinery. Considering different speeds of equipment upgrade in each company, the signing of MOU allows the introduction of technology and the establishment of a digital service center, which can take care of more enterprises and expand Microsoft’s application of smart manufacturing and smart city. As a partner of Taichung City Government, the Industrial Technology Research Institute can also introduce related technology.

Today, Mayor Lin visited Microsoft and was received by Joe Lin, President of Microsoft Greater China Region IoT & Cloud, and Ding Wei-yang, Chief Technology and Strategy Officer of Microsoft, to understand the applications of IoT and AI to the world-class smart machinery park and Microsoft’s successful promotion of the smart city in cooperation with the government of Singapore. To build a smart city and smart machinery, Mayor Lin also entered into an MOU with the Industrial Technology Research Institute and Microsoft on behalf of the city government.

Mayor Lin indicated that the purpose of Taichung City Government entering into a MOU with the Industrial Technology Research Institute and Microsoft is to accelerate the smart development of Greater Taichung using their specialization in smart manufacturing, smart city design and AI as well as cloud computing.

Mayor Lin pointed out that Taichung is a city of smart machinery and has a precision machinery park. The future development of smart manufacturing can be combined with related software and applied to the design and promotion of a smart city. Mayor Lin looked forward to the partnership between the city government, the Industrial Technology Research Institute and Microsoft to a certain extent.

Economic Development Bureau, Taichung City Government indicated that the technical application of a smart city in Taichung focused on ABC, namely AI, Blockchain, Big data, and Cloud. In the face of digital convergence, Taichung City Government will establish a digital governance bureau and invite representatives from the industry, the government, and the academia to form a smart city development committee that gives directions and advice on issues such as ICT infrastructure, information security, digital services, and open government. The Digital Governance Bureau is responsible to communicate, coordinate, integrate, and promote information communication services between each department, improve governance using IT, and integrate collected and analyzed data, machine learning and AI with urban transport, home applications, and medical care.

In terms of smart practice, Shuinan has been defined as a smart life area with the area of 254 hectares. In the future, Shuinan Smart City will be the demonstration area for smart transport and unmanned aerial vehicles, where the government works with the industry to demonstrate technical applications and provides innovative services combined with hardware and software through collection of key data.

The Economic Development Bureau pointed out that Microsoft offers complete training courses on AI/Big Data/IoT to help the city government and the Industrial Technology Research Institute develop outstanding talents in IoT and AI, technology and resources of start-ups under their jurisdiction. Through Microsoft, the digital transformation both in the government and the industry can be further improved. Successful foreign cases and data applications are introduced to help accelerate the development of smart machinery in Taichung and achieve the vision of a digital city where IoT, Big data and their applications are integrated.