Taiwan's recently elected president, Lai Ching-te, has used his inaugural address to call for the island state to upgrade to an AI nation.
"We must adapt AI for industry and step up the pace of AI innovation and applications," he added, and"must also adapt industry for AI and use AI's computational power to make our nation, our military, our workforce, and our economy stronger." "Our sights are set on making Taiwan the Asian hub of unmanned aerial vehicle supply chains for global democracies, and developing the next generation of medium- and low-orbit communications satellites, bringing Taiwan's space and aerospace industries squarely into the international sphere," he added.
The mentions of military strength and serving like-minded democracies are notable, because elsewhere in his speech Lai called on China to"cease their political and military intimidation against Taiwan, share with Taiwan the global responsibility of maintaining peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait as well as the greater region, and ensure the world is free from the fear of war.