The Science Parks: Taiwan’s Race and Rise to Revolutionary Innovation

Harried by the threats of warfare and lawfare by its giant neighbour China, the small island nation Taiwan is forging ahead in leaps and bounds. As islands go, Taiwan, with 13,885 square miles, is dwarfed by Greenland’s 840,000 or even second-ranking New Guinea’s 317,000 and has turned itself into the Asian jewel via transformative vehicles like the Hsinchu Science Park and the Industrial Technology Research Institute, reports Bayo Akinloye, who visited the innovative facilities on Wednesday

In the shadow of the forecasted Super Typhoon Leon (Kong-rey) and drizzles on Tuesday, the Hsinchu Science Park wears a welcoming smile and offers a warm embrace. Simple in stature and scenery, HSP is a citadel of some of the best and greatest inventions in modern times.
HSP at No. 2 Hsin Ann Road, Hsinchu in Taiwan, is over 70 kilometres away from the glitz of Taipei. Located at 121° East and 24.6° North in the Northern Hemisphere, Hsinchu is in the northwest of Taiwan, the beautiful Formosa Island.
It borders Taoyuan City in the north and Miaoli County in the south. To the west are the Taiwan Strait and the Xueshan Mountain Range. To the east is Dabajian Mountain. Mountains surround Hsinchu in three directions, and hills, plateaus, and mountains dominate Taiwan’s topography, except for certain river valleys and the alluvial plains at the estuaries of the Fongshan River and the Toucian River.

Hsinchu’s land area totals 1,427.5931 km². Of this, HSP occupies 1,466.97. Jing-Chiou Yu, Chief Secretary of HSP’s National Science and Technology Council and her staff were on hand to welcome a group of journalists from several countries. Scott Huang, an associate researcher, gave a glimpse of HSP’s multiverse.

First Choice of Global IC Manufacturing Cluster, the HSP is reckoned as the global top-leading IC industry supply chain in upstream, midstream, and downstream, offering cross-domain industry solutions in diversified high-tech sectors, like 5G, AI, and IoT, acting as a brilliant cradle for new ventures via futuristic ICT manufacturing technologies, with the aim to inspire a pilot innovation and entrepreneurial science park.

Currently, over 170,000 people work at HSP, with over NT$1,600,000 in science-based enterprises and over 600 million annual turnover. HSP’s focus is to keep technology innovation and turn the science park into the most competitive high-tech cluster in the world by bringing in emerging entrepreneurs and interdisciplinary talent.

With over 80 per cent of employees with bachelor’s degrees or higher qualifications, HSP is number one in products and manufacturing competence, wafer fabrication, IC packaging and testing, IC design, and TFT-LCD panels; number two in silicon-based solar cells and number three in LED.

Why HSP is unique?

It has a complete IC industry cluster, with a global top IC industry supply chain in upstream, midstream, and downstream, offering cross-domain industry solutions in diversified high-tech sectors, e.g. big data, IoT, AI, biotech, etc. It provides a veritable platform for biomedical industries, developing cutting-edge medical devices and new drugs, integrating with core research facilities and hospitals, and solidifying precision medical treatment industries. HSP is a cradle for new ventures by fostering a great environment for innovative ventures and entrepreneurship via terrific mentoring services and supports from surrounding academia, industries, and research and development facilities, together with close ties with global peers.

The park boasts top-ranking academia and R&D organisations with humanity concerns, offering a “wonderland for talent and research resources.” In addition, the HSP also offers wonderful investment incentives via sound and stable infrastructure, water and power supply, telecommunications, and traffic facilities. The HSP provides land for lease and standard fabs well-established for rent. Other incentives are commodity and business taxes that are free for self-use machines, equipment, raw materials, fuel, or semi-final products.

The same incentives are available for foreign investors.

HSP offers grants for innovative industry-academia cooperation programmes, up to NT$10 million for each project, which cannot exceed over 50 per cent of the total project budget. Research and development expenses can deduct 15 per cent of corporate income tax but cannot exceed 30 per cent of the total income tax paid to the government.
In terms of superior service quality and efficiency via one-stop services, the Hsinchu Science Park Bureau offers diversified one-stop services, including talent cultivation, research and development grants application, fab and land leasing, etc., which have been recognised by domestic and foreign accreditation authorities and is prospecting to a sustainable and smart science park pioneering domestic high-tech industry development.

The prospects of HSP appear limitless by keeping technology innovation and benefiting human beings by turning the science park into the most competitive high-tech cluster in the world via the bring-in of emerging entrepreneurs and interdisciplinary talent.

The HSP has other parks subsumed under it: Jhunan Park, Longtan Park, Biomedical Park, Tongluo Park and Yilan Park.

ITRI: An accelerator of innovation

The Industrial Technology Research Institute is a world-leading applied technology research institute with over 6,000 outstanding employees. Its mission is to drive industrial development, create economic value, and enhance social well-being through technology R&D. Founded in 1973, it pioneered IC development. It began nurturing new tech ventures and delivering its R&D results to industries. ITRI has set up and incubated companies such as TSMC, UMC, Taiwan Mask Corp., Epistar Corp., Mirle Automation Corp., and Taiwan Biomaterial Co.

Climate change, population dynamics, societal resilience, and paradigm shifts to digital lifestyles and industries are emerging as critical factors in shaping the landscape of technology.

To remain at the forefront of innovation and address global challenges, ITRI has launched its 2035 Technology Strategy & Roadmap. This strategy aims to enhance intelligentisation enabling technologies and focus on four application domains: Smart Living, Quality Health, Sustainable Environment, and Resilient Society. The Institute strives to leverage technological innovations to inspire new lifestyles, engineer market-driven solutions, create uncontested spaces, and ultimately steer society toward a better future.

For all to enjoy high-quality living and lifestyle, ITRI is directing its R&D efforts toward innovations in human-machine interaction and services, autonomous mobility systems, and smart consumption and logistics services. ITRI is currently developing XR systems, interactive in-vehicle systems, perception and prediction technologies, decision-making control, autonomous mobile robots, smart consumer services, and smart logistics. The goal is to meet the public’s and businesses’ daily needs while connecting Taiwan’s industries with international advancements to explore new markets.

With the aid of ICT, big data, and AI, successful ageing has become more attainable. ITRI actively advances holistic and preventive technologies for precision health, medicine, and healthcare to keep healthcare good and affordable. ITRI continuously refines smart medtech and elevates healthcare technology by leveraging the strengths of Taiwan’s ICT and medical systems. The development scope includes smart medical electronics, regenerative medicine, drug development, preventive healthcare, healthcare decision support systems, and general life-enhancing solutions. ITRI aspires to build a tech ecosystem for the public’s well-being within the global biomedical market value chain.
In pursuit of a sustainable future, ITRI is dedicated to enhancing technologies in circular economy, low-carbon manufacturing, and green energy and environment.

To create a community where both society and industry thrive, ITRI emphasises the green transition of chemical & material industries, sustainable electronics technology, biotechnology manufacturing, low-carbon product design, energy-efficient and low-carbon manufacturing, digitalisation within manufacturing processes, low-carbon agrotechnology, sustainable energy sources, energy efficiency, smart grid and energy storage, and environmental technologies.

ITRI is strengthening society’s ability to respond and recover through technology to address risks brought by extreme weather, large-scale earthquakes, geopolitics, and pandemics.

In infrastructure, resource and energy, and productivity sectors, ITRI is rolling out resilience solutions for transportation, information and communication networks, grid, energy resource management, key resources supply, workforce development, and manufacturing equipment and components.

Intelligentisation enabling technology is the backbone of the 2035 Technology Strategy and Roadmap.
ITRI turns to AI and cybersecurity, semiconductor, communications, and smart sensing technologies to foster breakthroughs in the above four application domains.

Dedicated to driving industry growth, ITRI continues exploring innovative application combinations and service possibilities. From 2018 to 2022, ITRI successfully launched five offices: the Grid Management and Modernization Strategy Office, the AI Application Strategy Office, the Southern Taiwan Industrial Innovation Strategy Office, the Net Zero and Sustainability Strategy Office, and the Office of Intelligent and Green Vehicle Promotion Strategy. These offices are the platforms to facilitate cross-disciplinary collaborations with R&D resources.

ITRI inaugurated the Net Zero and Sustainability Strategy Office in 2021. The Office serves as a bridge between industry, government, and academia, and it forms a platform for promoting net zero initiatives. ITRI has approached net zero emissions strategies across supply, demand, manufacturing, environment, and policy.

Based on these contexts, ITRI presents comprehensive multidisciplinary technology solutions that empower industries to gain greater competitiveness for the net zero era. A cloud carbon management platform was built to help manufacturers calculate their carbon footprints. The platform’s industry database has over 10,000 carbon emission coefficient entries. The platform can help industries cut carbon emissions for themselves and their supply chains.

A service team provides consulting and advice, evaluates product features, and identifies carbon emission hotspots. ITRI has also developed a learning map that enables businesses to realise net zero emissions schemes. In addition, it partnered with industry associations to hold training courses and set up a Net Zero and Sustainability School to formulate educational programmes and cultivate green-collar talent.

ITRI is developing advanced technologies and strengthening interdisciplinary integration to respond to the latest industry trends. Moreover, it offers comprehensive R&D collaboration and business consulting services, such as contract research, small-scale pilot production, process improvement, calibration and measuring, technology transfers, and IP value-added services.

With its open labs and incubators to promote startups and entrepreneurship, ITRI is actively accelerating technological development in industries and nurturing emerging high-tech businesses.

ITRI is also applying technologies to improve social welfare. In addition to launching technology applications and services, technology education promotion, and corporate volunteering programs, the Institute established a platform to integrate researchers’ efforts to give back to society with their R&D results.

Aiming to connect the global innovative technology ecosystem network and link Taiwan with the world, ITRI set up branch locations in the U.S., Japan, and Germany. ITRI can facilitate stronger and broader long-term partnerships and bilateral/multilateral collaborations among the international community by providing a global technology cooperation platform.