The Executive Yuan yesterday resumed a high-level Science and Technology Advisory Board Meeting after a 12-year hiatus, as the government aims to seek recommendations from industry leaders to craft new strategies for the nation to enhance its global competitiveness over the next decade, the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC) said in a statement.

During the 31 meetings held between 1980 and 2011, the government had sought advice from science and technology experts to help build world-class industries from semiconductor and biological technology to information and communications technology, the statement said.

“We are now in an era where science and technology have become synonymous with national strength on a global scale,” President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) said at the meeting in Taipei.

The three-day meeting is to focus on two main themes — green technologies amid the global effort to move toward carbon neutrality and possible mutual enhancement between artificial intelligence (AI) and the semiconductor industry.

Premier Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) and NSTC Minister Wu Tsung-tsong (吳政忠) are leading the meeting, while Academia Sinica President James Liao (廖俊智) is serving as the top technology adviser.

Meanwhile, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) and MediaTek Inc chairman Rick Tsai (蔡明介) are among the advisers at this year’s meeting, along with National Taiwan University president Chen Wen-chang (陳文章), US Scripps Research Institute professor Wong Chi-huey (翁啟惠), Harvard University computer science professor Kung Hsiang-tsung (孔祥重).

Taiwan has built a resilient and comprehensive semiconductor supply chain not seen in the rest of the world. To safeguard that technology leadership, the NSTC has proposed spending NT$300 billion (US$9.52 billion) over the next 10 years on fostering semiconductor and AI start-ups, as well as creating bigger talent pools, the council said.

Chen Chien-jen said this year’s meeting would focus on green energy, and the semiconductor and AI technologies that are expected to have a major impact on society and its development in the next 10 to 20 years.

“We expect that the advisers’ professional and visionary advice, based on Taiwan’s own existing advantages, will bolster and ensure the continued prosperity of Taiwan’s tech sector,” he said, adding that next year’s budget for technology development is more than NT$150 billion, up 18 percent from this year.

The second day of the meeting is to focus on the net-zero industry, aiming to make Taiwan a model for the world, the council said.

Over the three days, the group would come up with both medium and long-term technology development strategies with the goal of helping Taiwan achieve the highest technical capabilities, it said.