Taiwan’s Defence Ministry to Finance University R&D Focusing On Quantum Computing & Other Defence-Related Technologies

(UniversityWorldNews) Taiwan’s defence ministry is to finance research and development of defence-related technologies at universities for the first time in a new programme which could see up to 150 graduate students funded over the next five years.
“This is the first time to [fund research] directly from the ministry of defence to universities,” said Chen Ming-Syan, executive vice president of National Taiwan University (NTU) in Taipei.
Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense, together with the Ministry of Science and Technology, have been jointly allocated NT$5 billion (US$147 million) by the government over the next five years for the programme to focus on information security and robotics, artificial intelligence, the internet of things and quantum computing, which Wu Tsung-tsong, Taiwan’s minister of science and technology, said last month were key to defence technology development.
The two ministries plan to select up to six universities to establish research centres under the programme.
Academics said that direct funding from the defence ministry, while sensitive, is seen as a more efficient use of research funding and eliminates the need for ‘middleman’ bodies that channelled such funding – although much smaller amounts – to universities for defence-linked research.
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