Taiwan Aims to Become Asia's High-End Manufacturing Hub with Alliance

The formation of "Taiwan's Smart Manufacturing Alliance" on Oct. 6 heralded a new chapter to cement Taiwan's role as Asia's high-end manufacturing center, as witnessed by prominent top government and industry representatives.

Vice President William Lai, attending the meeting as a speaker, named both the Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers' Association (TEEMA) and the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI) representatives of Taiwan's vital industries.

The two associations have already inked their alliance to paper in July, while Tuesday's meeting saw the attendance from top Economic Ministry government officials, association representatives, and more, to formally tie the knot.

The Smart Manufacturing Alliance was born at an opportune moment in Taiwan's economic development, Vice President Lai said. With the trade tensions between the U.S. and China, many existing production chains were either broken or saw restructuring; the COVID-19 pandemic amplified this process, as countries looked to form their strategic resources. This backdrop also accelerated the smart era on a global scale. Lai named Taiwan's ICT industry as a huge contender, having built up its expertise and reputation in the past decades.

Taiwan also has several comprehensive local industry clusters on the island, including electronics, semiconductors, industrial control systems, industrial machinery, automated robots, and integrating systems. The final factor in Taiwan's favor is the experience accumulated over the years among industry leaders.

TAMI Chairman Alex Ko said aside from the alliance's smart solutions. It will also release an intelligent machinery cloud public version to compile resources among alliance members to develop smart applications. Ko says there are currently 45 pieces of software in testing, and expects that number to reach 98 by the year-end. Companies will be able to beta-test the software in 2021 and official commercial launch in 2022.

For Taiwan's electronics, the industry has been adjusting to the trends in the long-term, TEEMA Chairman Richard Lee said, pointing out it had not been the U.S.-China trade tensions that prompted the industry's changes. Electronics firms have been moving through Southeast Asia, China, America, Mexico, East Europe in the past 30 years; in recent years, the industry has looked back to Taiwan and the Southeast Asian region. Due to the global groundwork built over the years, Lee regards the industry to maintain its competitiveness in the future.