TAIPEI -- Taiwan's chipmakers have launched an unprecedented investment spree worth around $120 billion that will strengthen their grip on the global market, even as the U.S. warns against overreliance on an island at risk of a Chinese invasion.

Southern Taiwan Science Park was a hive of activity in late May. Trucks rumbled along the road, hauling in materials like steel beams for the forest of cranes building ever more chip factories at the site.

The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) has named the world’s Top7 Intelligent Communities of 2018. This is the think tank’s 16th annual Top7 list of regions, cities or towns that have gone, in ICF’s words, “from smart city to intelligent community.”

This year’s list includes communities from four nations, with Taiwan contributing three, Canada two communities and Australia and Finland one each. The seven will travel to London in June where one will go on to be named the Intelligent Community of the Year, succeeding Melbourne, Australia, the reigning community.

Chiayi, Tainan and Taoyuan have been named among the top seven Intelligent Communities for 2018, the New York-based think tank Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) said on Thursday.

The other four nominees in the list are Ipswich, Australia, Hamilton and Winnipeg, Canada, and Espoo, Finland, the forum said.

New York, Oct. 19 (CNA) Five cities and counties in Taiwan -- Chiayi, Keelung, Tainan and Taoyuan cities and Yilan County -- were named Wednesday among the world's Smart21 Communities of 2017 by the New York-based Intelligent Community Forum (ICF).

Also included were seven communities from Canada, four from Australia and one each from Kazakhstan, New Zealand, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States.