The 2020 World System Integrator Conference online forum takes place in Taiwan

The 2020 World System Integrator Conference (WSIC) online forum week was held in Taiwan from September 22 to 24, 2020. Themed Developing Safe and Sustainable Smart Cities, the event featured discussions concerning the development trends of smart cities and international cooperation in system integration. The System Integration Promotion Alliance (SIPA), a program of the Ministry of Economic Affairs’s Industrial Development Bureau (IDB), partnered with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to undertake research on and construction of smart cities. Representatives from the two banks who were invited to the forum by SIPA shared their insights into the development trends of smart cities and their strategies for creating such cities. At the forum, Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection Co., Ltd., a Taiwanese firm, outlined the outcomes of its efforts to establish an electronic toll collection system for local highways and related application scenarios that combine artificial intelligence (AI), 5G technology and data, in line with the regional New Southbound Policy. At the Taiwan-Thailand Smart City Sub-forum, Taiwanese wireless module manufacturer Jorjin Technologies Inc. signed a memorandum of understanding with Thailand’s Vincitec for the supply of Taiwan-made smart glass solutions to be rolled out throughout Thailand’s official organizations.

Minister of the National Development Council (NDC) Kung Ming-Hsin said in his speech that the government began implementing the Asia Silicon Valley Development Plan in 2016 in an effort to promote economic growth through entrepreneurship and industrial transformation by leveraging the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). To date, more than 200 smart solutions have been created for use in many IoT application services and are on track to be exported to international markets as part of the application model for a smart zone or an entire smart city. Based on the Asia Silicon Valley 2.0 Plan and existing achievements, the government plans to invest nearly NT$ 50 billion as part of its Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program to rapidly deploy AI and 5G applications, providing participants in the construction of smart cities and towns with 5G technologies and facilitating their low-latency and intelligent development.

At this year’s Taiwan–Thailand forum, Jorjin and Vincitec signed a MOU securing the supply of Taiwan-made smart glass solutions. Jorjin’s smart glass solution has seen wide application thanks to its independent operating system and support for video calls. By leveraging various apps, a number of features can be added to the solution via voice or manual input, including scheduling, map navigation, photography and video recording, in addition to Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) technologies. “By implementing commercially viable projects across Taiwan’s various sectors over the past three years, including industrial inspection, remote maintenance, healthcare, police and fire, culture, education and entertainment, the firm has made substantial progress in enabling 5G+AR-based digital transformation at numerous companies and government organizations,” said Jorjin Technologies chairman Tom Liang. “Thailand has started attaching great importance to the construction of smart cities, facilitating the industrial application of 5G technology. With the country’s many similarities to Taiwan as well as it being a technology hub within ASEAN, it was only natural that Jorjin would choose Thailand as the conduit for exports of the company’s products and solutions towards ASEAN countries and other destinations further south. The cooperation with the Thai firm is expected to lay a sound foundation for us to build our first AR base in overseas markets.”

At the invitation of WSIC 2020’s organizer, 350 representatives from Taiwanese system integrators as well as over 100 manufacturers from Thailand, the Philippines, India, Indonesia, Russia, among other countries, participated in the forum. The event was designed to give manufacturers worldwide an opportunity to learn about the development trends of smart cities and system integration, establishing Taiwan’s leadership role as a world-class system integration solution provider.