CGU Enews

Chang Gung University Established the Artificial Intelligence Research Center

Director: Prof. Shih-Lin Wu

Deputy Director: Prof. Chun-Yuan Lin

At present, artificial intelligence (AI) is an important scientific research strategy determined by the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan. It is hoped that Taiwan will become a major AI heavyweight, and then foster the development of AI emerging industries. Chang Gung University established the Artificial Intelligence Research Center aiming to develop artificial intelligence related technology research, cooperate with other research centers in the university and Chang Gung Memorial Hospital on artificial intelligence innovation application research, and participate in the artificial intelligence project of the Formosa Plastics Group companies. The purpose is to collaborate with the university research centers to carry out integrated research on precise medical care and to conduct a forward-looking application research on "Smart Healthcare" with the Chang Gung Memorial Hospital. Finally, it will help the Formosa Plastics related companies to develop the technology and platform required for "Smart Manufacturing". The AI Research Center was approved for establishment by the president in September 2018, and the university affairs meeting passed the establishment regulation of the center in December 2018.

The AI Research Center is a first-tier unit in CGU. It comprises the "Facility System Team", the "Artificial Intelligence and Algorithm Team", the "Edge Computing Team" and the "Interface Development Team". The center has a director, a deputy director, four team leaders, and a group of researchers, team members and technicians, made up a total of 12 people. The university will recruit professionals by using the funding of the university or related research or industry-university liaison program according to the needs of the center's research and development tasks. The university will also recruit internal and external experts and scholars to act as consultants. At present, the funds and resources are mainly funded by university, and the center is actively seeking funding through research projects of government research units, such as the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Education, and the industry-university liaison projects with the Formosa Plastics related companies.

The current hardware devices of the AI Research Center are mainly built towards the goal of owning private AI cloud platform. It is expected to have the storage devices, AI computing devices and high-performance computing devices needed for the handling of huge data and the development of artificial intelligence modules. For software planning, the university will focus on open source software, hoping to build a friendly and resource-rich collaboration platform to facilitate participants to develop relevant AI application research on the platform. For personnel training, teachers, experts and scholars in the center have many years of research and development experience in machine learning and in-depth learning. They cooperate with internal and external research centers and industry talents to form an excellent research team, and provide necessary training contents to professional talents according to their work tasks. The necessary training content combines both theory and practice, so that they can acquire hands-on experience and learn while doing.

The AI Research Center has set short-, medium-, and long-term goals. The main short-term goal is to strengthen academic exchanges and cooperation with the university's research centers and Chang Gung Memorial Hospital. Hopefully the one-plus-one research power will yield a research outcome higher than two. In terms of medium-term goals, the university will strengthen cooperation with the Formosa Plastics related companies, other top research centers in Taiwan, and well-known foreign universities/centers, apply R&D outcomes and technologies to the Formosa Plastics related companies, and cooperate with other domestic and foreign research centers to carry out greater and more complex scientific investigations. The AI Research Center is actively seeking cooperation opportunities with the Formosa Plastics related companies.  We will also adhere to the principle of honesty and reciprocity when cooperating with other companies, sharing research and development experience and conducting corporate discussions.  Furthermore, we will plan a blueprint for cooperation with a pragmatic attitude. The university is looking forward to participating in the R&D of AI applications for the Formosa Plastics related companies, assisting in the establishment and management of the AI cloud platform, training and educating talents, and becoming a partner in project development. The long-term goal is to transform the research outcomes of the center into specific products or business operation models to establish a new company to cater to the research and development needs of domestic and foreign companies.