Taiwanese integrated telecommunications service provider Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) held a press conference on June 17 to announce the start of the CHT Digital Innovative Application Series Competition, a national digital creation competition.
The CHT Digital Innovative Application Series Competition includes the Smart Innovation Application Competition, the 5G Accelerator Selection, and the FunPark Children's Book Star Award. It focuses on seven major application areas: smart culture, smart manufacturing, smart healthcare, smart environment, smart living, smart transportation, and smart finance. The competition combines 5G with AI to encourage teams to propose innovative solutions to address the practical needs of industries while also taking into account sustainable development.
CHT showcases AI avatar technology
In recent years, CHT has been actively developing its own AI technology and innovative applications. One of the highlights of the press conference was its hyper-realistic AI assistant powered by generative AI technologies developed by Chunghwa Telecom Laboratories. These include realistic AI human avatars, speech recognition, voice cloning, large language model comprehension, and precise knowledge questions and answers. The assistant is capable of real-time interactive conversations in multiple languages.
A hyper-realistic AI assistant modeled after CHT chairman Alex Chien made an appearance at the event, introducing highlights of the competition alongside the conference host. This marked the first live generative AI demonstration in Taiwan's domestic telecommunications industry led by a corporate executive, showcasing the technological capabilities of Chunghwa Telecom Laboratories.
Fostering startups to push AI development in Taiwan
According to Chien, the core of the AI era is not just technology but lies even more so in practical applications and value creation. He stated that CHT will continue to leverage its platform capabilities, open technologies, and cross-industry integration to accelerate the development of AI talent and promote diverse application scenarios to realize the smart island blueprint.
Additionally, CHT's 5G accelerator follows the "big supporting small" concept of empowering startups. It provides business expansion, technical support, proof of concept field, capital matching, marketing exposure, and telecommunications resources to help cultivate local startups in Taiwan.
This year, CHT added the AI Innovation Special Award to encourage AI startup teams and promote the development and market adoption of AI applications. The award also provides AI computing resources to help startup teams accelerate growth and bring new innovative application services to the market, driving Taiwan's startup industry rainforest ecosystem.
Article edited by Jack Wu
