A visitor sits on a quadruped robot designed for inspection tasks at the Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robot Show in Taipei yesterday.
RIVAL BLOCS: Kazakhstan has signed on to the US’ and China’s AI frameworks; a US official said it was difficult to see how a country can be trusted while in a competing pact The US is preparing to tell dozens of countries they must pick sides in the artificial intelligence (AI) race with China, warning they would be excluded from a US-led AI coalition if they also sign up for Beijing’s competing framework, according to a US official and an internal draft reviewed by Reuters. Washington last year launched the Pax Silica initiative aimed at securing supply chains for AI models, semiconductors and critical minerals, amid a fierce technology rivalry with Beijing. About two dozen countries have joined, including Kazakhstan, a key potential source of critical minerals that has also joined China’s coalition,
Taiwan and other technology democracies have a "golden but narrowing" three-to-five-year window to lay the foundations for an advanced robotics supply chain outside China, particularly for humanoid robots, a Taiwan-based researcher said yesterday. A report released on Monday by the Research Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) examines China-West competition in physical artificial intelligence (AI) and Taiwan’s potential role in developing alternatives to Chinese robot supply chains. Humanoid robots remain unproven, meaning China’s lead in shipments currently has a limited impact on the real economy, Nathanael Cheng (鄭秉信), a policy analyst in the DSET Economic Security Program, said in a








