The city of Taichung in central Taiwan is a county-sized municipality that is home to nearly three million people. Its urban cluster hosts a major seaport and service economy, while its rural areas are agricultural and industrial. Aside from the seaport, the backbone of its industrial economy consists of 1,500 precision machinery makers and tens of thousands of SME suppliers.

Precision manufacturing offered growth potential in an advanced economy like that of Taiwan. The question was how to unleash it – and city government hit on a unique solution. By sharing the costs of software licensing, Taichung's government enabled manufacturers to bid and win jobs with major corporations that were previously out of reach. They also reduced their own purchasing costs while gaining a competitive edge on smaller vendors in other cities.

How did Taichung do it? Find out.

What can other communities teach me?

Communities accelerate by starting an Intelligent Community Journey. Each is different, but all follow similar paths. Start yours.
 
 

Learn from Taichung and many others in the Community Accelerator Spotlight course: Turning Digital Bits Into Real Coin. Thirty minutes of your time will pay big dividends in your work.
 
 

Machinery maker Hiwin Technologies Corp (上銀) and Siemens AG yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding, vowing to create a “smart” machinery industry.

Hiwin and Siemens are to work together to integrate machine tools and “smart” controllers in a bid to enhance the value chain of Taichung’s machine tool industry.

As the first hurricane-force storm sits just off from the Atlantic Ocean’s shores, the American Northeast Summer draws to a close. During its rapid course, I took some hours to look back on the ICF Summit in June, celebrate its highlights and to consider what it means as our movement goes forward into the next Awards cycle, with its conclusion this time on the big stage of New York.

When the city and county of Taichung merged in 2010, it created a huge metropolis uniting completely different economies: a major seaport city where 70% of employees work in services, and a rural county where 50% work in industry and agriculture is a significant source of income.

The city’s leadership, under Mayor Chih-Chiang (Jason) Hu, was determined to create a whole much greater than the sum of its parts.

Spreading Broadband

The city and telecom companies partnered to create thousands of WiFi hotspots, fiber-based broadband and 4G WiMAX now reaching more than 90% of the population. Through imaginative applications developed by public-private partnership, ICT has become a driver of greater global competitiveness.

The backbone of Taichung’s manufacturing economy is a network of 1,500 precision machinery makers and tens of thousands of SME suppliers. Smaller companies now benefit from a shared, cloud-based ERP system that reduces their purchasing costs and time-to-market. An RFID system at the port automates the clearing of shipping containers for exit, slashing the time trucks spend idling at the gate.

Taichung is also helping farmers apply ICT to improve yields and profitability while expanding their international markets.

To power this new economy, the city and its 17 colleges have created a truly lifelong learning system ranging from basic digital education and vocational training to advanced study and continuous skills improvement. And Taichung is aggressively pursuing industrial clustering through development of the Central Taiwan Technology Corridor combining science parks, precision manufacturing parks and software parks to give physical shape to its global ambitions.

In the News
Read the latest updates about Taichung City.

Want to know more about Taichung City?
Taichung City was featured in the Intelligent Community Forum books Brain Gain and Seizing Our Destiny.

Population: 2,746,112

Website: www.taichung.gov.tw

Intelligent Community of the Year 2013

Smart21 2012 | 2013

Top7 2012 | 2013

New York, NY, April 9, 2015 – The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) today announced that it has named Dr. Chih-Chiang (Jason) Hu (pictured right), Vice Chairman of the Want Want Group and a former three-term mayor of the city of Taichung, Taiwan, as its Visionary of the Year for 2015. The Intelligent Community Visionary of the Year Award is presented to an individual or an organization that has taken a leadership role in promoting broadband technology and applications as an essential and transformative human utility, and whose work has had global impact on the entire Intelligent Community movement. Dr. Hu was cited for his decades of work in government service, including what it called his “revolutionary leadership” of Taichung as Mayor and his work as his nation’s Foreign Minister.

Over the past 100 days the people have spoken. In several important cities they decided to lift their voice and open the exits for several incumbents. New mayors and elected officials were sworn in among several Intelligent Community Forum Foundation cities, including three Intelligent Communities of the Year, Toronto (2014), Taichung (2013) and Taipei (2006). These champions replaced familiar, popular and controversial leaders. The most notable for me was in Taichung, Taiwan.

The Intelligent Community Forum announced today that the Mayor of Taichung, Taiwan, Dr. Jason Hu will give the annual “Revolutionary Community” keynote address at the 2014 Summit of the Intelligent Community Forum in New York City on June 5. Now in his third consecutive term, Mayor Hu, a former Foreign Minister of Taiwan and an internationally known political figure, led Taichung to the 2013 Intelligent Community of the Year award. The Intelligent Community of the Year serves as the global model for cities seeking to build economic and social advantages based on broadband and information technology.

ICF also presents awards to Waterloo’s Blackberry founder Mike Lazaridis as the 2013 Visionary of the Year and a Lifetime Achievement Award to Dana McDaniel of Dublin, Ohio

(New York City, New York, 7 June 2013) — The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) today named Taichung City, Taiwan as the Intelligent Community of the Year during its annual awards ceremony at Steiner Film Studios in Brooklyn, New York, USA. Taichung City, which has appeared among the Top7 Intelligent Communities for two years in a row, was represented by a delegation led by Deputy Secretary-General Ching-Chih Liao. The co-founders of ICF – Louis A. Zacharilla, John G. Jung and Robert A. Bell – presented the award to Taichung City, which succeeds Riverside, California, USA, the 2012 recipient.

Honolulu, Hawaii & New York, New York – January 23, 2013 – The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) today named the 2013 Top7 Intelligent Communities of the Year. The Top7 list includes three from North America, two from Taiwan and two from Europe. “The Top7 communities of 2013 have made innovation – based on information and communications technology –the cornerstone of their economies and fostered economic growth through high-quality employment, while increasing the quality of life of their citizens,” said Lou Zacharilla, ICF co-founder in announcing the list at the Pacific Telecommunications Council’s annual conference (PTC’13) in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA.