Taiwan can help set standards in AI race

The US-China AI competition has moved beyond compute power. It is now about controlling developmental pace while limiting rivals. Three major US AI leaders, Amodei, Altman, and Musk, call for slowing AI. This directly opposes Trump's stance. The July Hugging Face incident, involving 1,200 AI agents and 700 attacks, shows the clear security risks. Patching vulnerabilities post-launch will become impossible as AI models collaborate and exploit loopholes.

Taiwan cannot view this as an internal US tech debate. Washington's linking of AI security to Chinese tech restrictions makes Taiwan's advanced chips a security policy tool. Taiwanese companies face more than export controls. Their customers, investments, and R&D partnerships will be assessed geopolitically. Taiwan must become a rulemaker, not just a recipient of rules set by others.

The test for Taiwan is to establish risk classifications and third-party testing for frontier AI. It must leverage its semiconductor position to develop standards for compute governance and chip traceability. Failure to do so means Taiwan bears the costs of strict controls. It would have little choice but to accept external rules. This is the critical next step for Taipei.