Taiwan Nanotechnology Output to Soar - Researcher
Tue Mar 8, 2005 05:59 AM ET
By Kirby Chien
TAIPEI (Reuters) - Backed by strong government funding, Taiwan's output of a wide range of products using nanotechnology will jump 10 fold by 2008 to T$300 billion ($10 billion), a top researcher said on Tuesday.
Nanotechnology deals with manipulating particles one-billionth of a meter in size, and promises benefits from a coating of paint that lasts decades, to faster-acting and more effective medicines, to golf balls that go further and straighter.
"The government has targeted nanotechnology as the most important strategic industry for Taiwan's future economic growth," Su Tsung-tsan, the general director of the NanoTechnology Research Center (NTRC), told Reuters.
Su said Taiwan will produce T$1 trillion of goods using nanotechnology by the year 2012, accounting for nearly 10 percent of the island's US$350 billion economy.
The NTRC, which gets about half of its budget from the Taiwan government, is home to about 150 researchers who cooperate with private companies and academic institutions to find commercial applications for their research.
According to data from research company Venture Analytics, Taiwan nanotechnology research funding ranked number eight in the world in 2003 at US$115 million.
The island is ahead of France and India, but far behind regional competitors like China and South Korea.
"Nanotech is crucial for Taiwan's goal of becoming a knowledge-based economy," said Su.
Taiwan has seen thousands of its factories migrate to lower-cost China since the late 1980s, so the island is positioning itself as a center for research and development, while allowing low-tech manufacturing to move to China.
The NTRC is situated on the sprawling campus of Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI).
The center was the first production facility of what spun off to become Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), the world's largest contract chip maker and one of the island's most globally competitive companies.
The NTRC maintains close relations with companies like TSMC, whose chairman, Morris Chang, is a former president of ITRI.
(US$1=T$30.9)
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