TAIPEI (TVBS News) —Taiwan built its economic miracle on making things the world couldn't see — microscopic semiconductors that power everything but remain invisible to users. Now Taichung, the island's industrial heartland, is betting on the opposite: artificial intelligence you can touch, see, and talk to. Robots that patrol hospital corridors. Drones that inspect infrastructure. Buses that drive themselves.
In an exclusive interview with TVBS on Wednesday (July 22), Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) and Tunghai University (東海大學) President Chang Kuo-en (張國恩) laid out their plan to transform Taiwan's third-largest city into what they call the next "sacred mountains of national protection" — language Taiwan typically reserves for semiconductor giant TSMC's strategic importance to the island's security and economy.
"We want to build two sacred mountains," Lu said, her voice carrying the measured confidence of a mayor who has staked her city's future on this claim. "One is unmanned vehicles and drones. The second is robots."
Chang, an electrical engineering Ph.D. who has become one of Taiwan's leading voices on AI education, sees an even broader transformation. "The future cluster of sacred mountains may be right here in Taichung," he said, expressing hope the walls between university and industry must come down. "We're bringing companies directly into our classrooms because the old model — where universities alone decide what to teach — no longer serves our students or society."
Their confidence rests on Taichung's industrial DNA. The city and surrounding region account for roughly 70 percent of Taiwan's precision machinery industry, according to city government figures. The supply chain stretches from semiconductors — with TSMC (台積電) and Micron (美光) factories nearby — through optics giant Largan Precision (大立光), to carbon fiber, aerospace components, and the machine tools that manufacture them all.
"Without these industries, forget about drones, forget about robots, even autonomous vehicles — we couldn't do any of it," Chang explained. "We would have a brain but no limbs, no application. That's why Taichung is different — we already have the body parts. We just need to give them intelligence."
The transformation is already visible across the city. At Taichung Municipal Hospital (台中市立醫院), pink robot nurses now assist with patient rounds, checking safety and reminding patients about medication schedules. Children who once arrived anxious now eagerly try to chat with the machines, Lu noted. "It's more accurate than human memory and prevents our medical staff from being overworked," she said.
At Tunghai University, Chang has introduced equally tangible changes. AI ethics has become a required course, freshman Chinese classes now teach AI-assisted writing, and the university's partnership with Georgia Tech is developing Taiwan's first humanoid robot research platform. "Students graduating today have skills that didn't exist in our curriculum three years ago," Chang said. "We've had to fundamentally rethink what a university is for."
The city government, meanwhile, is developing AI systems for its 1999 citizen hotline and disaster response. The hotline system would handle initial inquiries while human workers shift to supervisory roles. For typhoons, AI would analyze data and recommend police deployments, fire truck positioning, and infrastructure vulnerabilities.
"Taichung will seize the AI opportunity," Lu declared. "We will not only be Taiwan's AI stronghold, but the world's most important base for AI production and R&D. We're talking about global competition."
Chang frames this competition in educational terms. "AI is truly an education revolution," he said, his tone shifting to that of a professor who has spent decades in classrooms now being reshaped by the technology he describes. "But revolution is a goal, and reform is the means. We hope to use educational reform to achieve the education revolution that AI is bringing."
The stakes transcend Taichung. Taiwan has long relied on its semiconductor dominance as both economic engine and security guarantee — the "silicon shield" that makes the island indispensable to global supply chains. But as the United States, Europe, Japan, and China race to build their own chip-making capacity, that advantage may erode. Physical AI could offer a new form of indispensability.
Both leaders point to momentum building toward the Aug. 26 "2026 Smart Taichung AI Robot Forum," featuring speakers including Phison Electronics (群聯電子) founder Pua Khein-Seng (潘健成) and Foxconn (鴻海) executive Yang Qiu-jin (楊秋瑾). The city has attracted 370 approved investment cases under the "Invest Taiwan" program as of June, the most nationally.
Meanwhile, autonomous bus trials with Feng Chia University (逢甲大學) are already operating in limited areas, testing whether driverless vehicles can navigate not just roads but the complexities of public transit.
At Taichung Municipal Hospital, where pink robot nurses now remind patients to take their medicine, children no longer arrive with anxious faces. They want to talk to the machines. They're curious, not afraid.
Perhaps that's the real transformation both leaders are betting on — not just factories that build robots, but a generation that grows up unafraid of them. As Chang put it in closing: "Knowledge can be replaced by AI. Skills can be partially replaced. But attitude — that cannot be replaced." ⏹
▶ The "2026 Smart Taichung AI Robot Forum" (2026智慧台中AI機器人論壇) will take place on Wednesday (Aug. 26) at Taichung City Hall (臺中市政府市政大樓), 4th floor assembly hall. The event runs from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The forum centers on "AI × Robotics × City Governance" and aims to define Taichung's strategic role in the global tech supply chain over the next decade.