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TWCC provides personalized computing services

Mark Tsai, Taipei; Adam Hwang, DIGITIMES Asia

Taiwan Computing Cloud (TWCC) established by National Center for High-performance Computing (NCHC) has introduced personalized computing services for AI research and application on a flexible pricing basis, according to Wang Yu-tai, director for NCHC's Intelligent Application Division.

TWCC features high-performance computing capacity set up by NCHC and pre-installed virtual environment for developing software to enable quick use of computing services, Wang said.

Users can build their own models at TWCC and independently store personalized scenarios, Wang noted. With VM (virtual machine) bundled with users, TWCC can be plugged and used at any time, Wang indicated, adding TWCC can flexibly adjust computing capacity available for use depending on the number of simultaneous users.

For pricing, TWCC can detect users' completing running of software programs and then automatically stop operation of computing services to end charging, a measure to base service prices on the actual amount of use, Wang noted. For example, AI-based interpretation of 50,000 512x512 medical images about 400 disease cases takes one day of computing and is charged with about NT$31,000 (US$1,030), while that of 300 256x256 and 800x60 images about 800 disease cases using the same interpretation model takes only one hour at a price of NT$82, Wang said.

TWCC is intended to develop toward providing one-stop customized services, along with accumulation of analytical and computing cases, algorithms and application software at a marketplace for shared use, Wang indicated.

NCHC is under government-sponsored National Applied Research Laboratories (NARLabs).