Taiwan aims to train 500,000 AI pros by 2040

By Esme Yeh / Staff writer, with CNA Add TT as Preferred Source President William Lai’s (賴清德) administration plans to allocate more than NT$40 billion (US$1.26 billion) next year to develop 10 major artificial intelligence (AI) projects, with a goal of training at least 500,000 AI professionals by 2040.Lai yesterday met with the VIS Mars robotics team, which represented Taiwan at the FIRST Tech Challenge robotics tournament in Turkey in June. He praised the students for overcoming a major setback when customs detained their competition equipment after they arrived in Turkey.Unable to access their robot, the team collected discarded components and borrowed tools from other teams to assemble a replacement robot before the competition. They won four qualification matches and earned the tourna