2025 Breakthrough Forum: U.S.-China AI Rivalry and Taiwan’s Way Forward
In early 2025, Chinese startup DeepSeek burst onto the global stage with its low-cost, high-performance AI capabilities, shaking up the tech world and posing a significant challenge to America's dominant AI giants.
DeepSeek’s emergence is not only shifting the U.S.-China AI power dynamics but also sparking an international AI arms race and a broader conversation about open-source development and democratization of artificial intelligence.
In the face of this AI upheaval and the U.S.-China rivalry, what opportunities should Taiwan seize—and what challenges must it confront? These are urgent questions that demand deeper exploration.
To that end, the Fair Winds Foundation has invited Deputy Minister of Digital Affairs Lin Yi-Ching, Legislator Dr. Ko Yu-Chun, iKala co-founder and CEO Sega Cheng, and Director Chueh Chih-Ke of Delta Research Institute to share their insights and Ms. Phoebe Chen, host of News98’s Morning Finance Wake-Up Call, will moderate.
Time: Saturday, March 29, 2025 2:30–4:30 PM
Venue: Room A646, NCCU Public Affairs Center (6F, No. 187, Jinhua St., Da’an District, Taipei City 106
Organized by: Fair Winds Foundation
Co-sponsor: The Storm Media
Contact: (02) 2752-1700
與會來賓
A seasoned media professional with deep expertise in international trends, business, and politics. She’s known for hosting programs like TVBS's National Assembly and Yahoo TV’s Policy Insight: Dragon-Phoenix Pair, and was honored with Taiwan’s "Outstanding Radio Host Award" in 2020.
Deputy Minister Lin received his bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and Information Engineering from National Taiwan University and Ph.D. in Computer Science from Brown University. Deputy Minister Lin was formerly a postdoctoral researcher at IBM’s Watson Research Center, deputy manager of the Information Engineering Division at Wistron Corporation, associate director of New Product Development at TrendMicro, and a columnist for INK Literary Monthly. He is founder and CEO of Air Technology, with a strong background in technology and extensive industry experience.
Current roles:
• Legislator-at-large
• Vice Chair, USA Caucus, Legislative Yuan
• President, Advanced Technology Exchange Association, Executive Yuan
• djunct Assistant Professor, Graduate Institute of Networking and Multimedia, National Taiwan University (NTU)
Experience:
• Founder and host of AI/Web3 podcast “Baobo Talks”
• Consultant for virtual world policy planning under Executive Yuan
• Active in vTaiwan and digital governance
Education:
• Ph.D. in Computer Engineering, NTU
• Postdoctoral researcher in media design, Keio University
Sega Cheng graduated from the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University in 2007, specializing in AI research for the past 20 years. After graduation, he joined Google’s headquarters in Silicon Valley as a software engineer, becoming one of the earliest engineers to integrate AI into the Google search engine. He also collaborated with colleagues to develop Google Transit, a widely popular product. Before leaving Google, he was responsible for the multimedia framework of the Android smartphone operating system, and he became the first Taiwanese engineer to speak at the Google I/O global developer conference.
After founding iKala, Sega received the prestigious Pan Wen Yuan Award from Taiwan’s electronics sector, secured over ten patents, and authored a bestselling AI book titled The Underlying Logic and Survival Rules of the AI World, published in English, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.
iKala was co-founded by Sega in 2012, built upon its core software technology in “data analytics.” The company provides AI total solutions for enterprises and brand owners, offering two major services: “AI Integration” and “AI Marketing.” Globally, over 1,000 companies have adopted iKala’s AI integration and cybersecurity solutions. In addition, more than 50,000 enterprises use iKala’s AI marketing technologies, with clients ranging from multinational advertising agencies and financial groups to large-scale manufacturers and Fortune 500 companies.
Education
• Ph.D., Computer Science, UC Berkeley
• M.S., Computer Science, Stanford University
Experience
• General Director, Information and Communications Research Laboratories, Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI)
• Roles in Taiwan’s Cloud Computing Alliance and National Science Council’s Electronics Division
• Chief Scientist, Arteris Inc.
• Visiting Scholar, U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory
• Director, Core Research Lab at Symantec HQ