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taijuan
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an island shaped like a leaf but the
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meeting point of four sees many around
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the world came to know it through the
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words made in Taiwan stamped on
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electronics toys and bikes it became a
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brand people recognized
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[Music]
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but the world has changed again hardware
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is out software is in AI is the future
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handsets for the past - sitting back in
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and I have been on a journey to find out
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what made in Taiwan means in the 21st
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century welcome to Taiwan
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[Music]
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500 years back Taiwan was known as a
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pirate Kingdom a base for Chinese and
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Japanese entrepreneurs who traded in the
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South China Sea
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but more recently it's chased legitimate
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business but still we're an
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entrepreneurial zeal leading the world
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of technology manufacturing since the
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1960's over 30 years
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Taiwan underwent massive
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industrialization in what has become
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known as the Taiwan miracle huge tech
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firms grew becoming household names Asus
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HTC Acer and the center of this was the
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semiconductor industry led by a company
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you've probably never heard of TSMC it's
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one of the largest semiconductor
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manufacturers in the world producing the
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chips inside some of the best phones
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including the iphone 11 it is most
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likely if you have a smartphone you have
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something made by tsmc and these chips
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were only made possible thanks to the
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discovery of semiconductors way
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semiconductor important or interesting
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because it changes your life with
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factories or fabs as they are known
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across the globe the largest is here in
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Taiwan and we've been granted exclusive
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access to see just how those chips that
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form the heart of our electronic devices
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are created but before we could go into
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the fab there was quite a process to
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undergird I have to take my shoes off on
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the carpet Locker it seems and that was
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just the start I had to put on a hair
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net wash my hands and wear this to keep
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the dust out whew but it is time for an
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air shower
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[Music]
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the manufacturing of wafers has to be
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extremely precise they cannot tolerate
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any particles that may fall onto the
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wafer and damaged the chips
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[Music]
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so finally we were allowed in the
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factory and there was a good reason for
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all of that faff the speed of these
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chips relies on how many transistors you
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can cram into a tiny space and when I
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say tiny I'm talking nanometers some
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even specks of dust would matter I don't
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really know how to describe how fine
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that five nanometer or seven nanometer
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is but I think people very often say if
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you look at twenty a nanometer it was
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like one thousands of a the diameter of
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a human hair in this fully automated
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Factory the lights are kept yellow to
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protect the product and the machinery is
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moving all around but there are quite a
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few things in here we're not allowed to
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film because this is seriously
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cutting-edge technology so it needs to
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remain pretty secret we have to protect
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our customers information whichever way
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we we can and so basically we do not
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allow cameras to freely roam inside our
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fab is because inevitably they may pick
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up customer information
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between all the automated devices in
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this facility they travel 400,000
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kilometers a day to put that into
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context that's 10 times around earth all
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of this is about the concept of keeping
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up with Moore's law as predicted by
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Intel engineer Gordon Moore in the 60s
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he refers to the doubling of transistors
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on a chip every 2 years whilst the cost
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is carved a concept increasingly hard to
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keep up with despite us expecting a lot
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more from our ever connected lives the
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next driver is what we call ubiquitous
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computing it is computation everywhere
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at any time all the devices are
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connected billions and billions of edge
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devices that are smart they can compute
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at any time and communicate and link and
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that would be the future enabled by
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semiconductors it's a future that's not
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too far away for Taiwan AI is making
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substantial progress here especially in
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healthcare
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I'm here at Taipei Veterans General
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Hospital where they're already
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experiencing the benefits of AI whilst
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many AI systems the hidden behind closed
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doors in this hospital we were given
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behind-the-scenes access we have as a
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patient actually inside the tunnel and
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he is scanned for his brain to see if
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there any parameter sources coming from
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the lung cancer
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many of the patient come here already
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have preliminary diagnosis as a cancer
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from outside Hospital so every patient
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come here with anxiety so our purpose is
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to diminish insulted the degree on
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society and to shorten the process in
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real world I have to read images one by
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one it's pretty heavy physical load in
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work and with a assistance I can as air
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to helping to read the images
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[Music]
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but what could take a doctor a couple of
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weeks can be done by the AI in seconds
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and you can see that how quick the
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images been uploaded to the system and
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from the AI you can see the vision
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already there another one here that time
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can make all the difference beyond the
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diagnosis the AI is also assisting the
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surgeons with surgery decisions although
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the patients has been Stage four lung
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cancer so he shouldn't be operated why
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though has Taiwan and this hospital
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managed to lead the world in AI people
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in Taiwan we're proud of two things one
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is computer science
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the other one is medicine our of our
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medical affairs was computerized the for
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more than twenty years it's the fact
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that you've been collecting data over a
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number of years what puts you in a
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really good position to be able to put
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into practice a lot of this AI oh yeah
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because we contend the machine they can
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learn to write make the diagnosis of
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physicians
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okay so the imaging is the same as
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imaging you would have used before but
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it's at the point of diagnosis that a
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computer now knows that yes instead of a
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doctor is a Carnell for deep learning
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everyone in Taiwan has a health care
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card which is used to access medical
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records
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so basically ones that you have car can
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go to the doctor everywhere because I
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think many by the percent of people
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actually use our health care insurance
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system - - as a mean to see doctors so
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that makes all the data to centralize in
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one place and you can imagine that if
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some database that has the old medical
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record no recommendation that's like a
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first step over AI but the data can only
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be read if a doctor also inserts their
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card into this device but it's also like
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a key or authorization by patient
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otherwise I cannot assess her
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information and without her approval so
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I need to put my card here so you can
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see a CT see the information we also
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upload the imagery within 24 hours after
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the study that's very convenient so if
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she visit the other hospitals all the
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primary care physician offices the
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doctors they all can access the same
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information like me but it's not just
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big hospitals using AI in health care I
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traveled across town to a small start-up
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at the cutting edge of medical science
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this brain tracking system is used to
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assess stress in the brain and in turn
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the likelihood of someone being
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susceptible to depression
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[Music]
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over the last decade many many
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neuroimaging studies have proved that
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the brain activity of patient with
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depression help some of no more
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condition but these evidence are found
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by am I not eg for mild equation am I
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cannot found anything but we can found a
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multi patient from EEG signal that is
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the brain wave signal the cap is cheaper
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and unlike an MRI is portable it aims to
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allow doctors to diagnose depression in
00:11:07
a more scientific way and we use the AI
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analysis method to analyze the patterns
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of the data from the patients with
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depression and finally with some we
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found some biomarkers and we can detect
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whether the person has depression or not
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above eighty percent accuracy the
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company hopes to launch the product next
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year and is also looking at how it might
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be used to identify Alzheimer's
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attention deficit disorder and
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susceptibility to insomnia
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[Music]
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welcome to the week in tech it was the
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week that a device dispatched by Samsung
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to send selfies to space came back to
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earth with a thud crash landing in a
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back garden in Michigan USA thankfully
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nobody was injured on a slightly safer
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note the korean tech giant has teased a
00:12:08
flip phone
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how very early noughties of them with a
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foldable screen let's hope this one's
00:12:13
more successful than its last attempt at
00:12:15
a folding phone Twitter has banned all
00:12:18
political advertising worldwide on its
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platform saying that the reach of such
00:12:22
messages should be earned not bought the
00:12:25
move puts pressure on rival social media
00:12:27
outfit Facebook which recently ruled out
00:12:30
banning political ads in other Facebook
00:12:33
news the social network has agreed to
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pay a five hundred thousand pound fine
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issued by the UK data protection
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watchdog over the Cambridge analytical
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scandal ending a year's worth of legal
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wrangling over the issue as part of the
00:12:46
agreement Facebook has made no admission
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of liability Facebook subsidiary
00:12:50
whatsapp is suing the NSO group an
00:12:53
Israeli surveillance company alleging it
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created various whatsapp accounts and
00:12:57
caused malicious code to be transmitted
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by its servers to roughly 1,400 mobile
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devices for the purposes of spying the
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NSA group said it disputed the
00:13:06
allegations and would vigorously fight
00:13:08
them and finally an American company has
00:13:10
developed a pair of smart glasses
00:13:12
designed to improve concentration and
00:13:14
prevent distraction nabis claims sensors
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in a smart specs measure the wearer's
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brain activity if they decide the wearer
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isn't paying attention the glasses
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darkened preventing them from seeing the
00:13:27
distraction the glasses will cost six
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hundred and ninety dollars may launch in
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December
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back in Taiwan one of the biggest causes
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of healthcare problems is pollution and
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there's a lot of it as Stephen can smell
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and see this is Taipei's famous or
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perhaps infamous scooter waterfall it's
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one of the main routes into central
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taipei for thousands of commuters every
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day it's mind-boggling how many mopeds
00:14:05
there are here thousands of them is keep
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on coming and you know what you really
00:14:11
get a sense of just how much pollution
00:14:12
these guys probably causing because it
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stinks it's horrible and I think when
00:14:18
you're walking around the city you don't
00:14:19
notice but here you really get a sense
00:14:21
of it it's really quite disgusting
00:14:26
it's not often that you can see smell
00:14:28
and even feel the pollution in a place
00:14:30
this is an extreme example of a problem
00:14:32
that's a growing issue not only in
00:14:34
Taiwan but around the world
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imagine sitting at a stoplight behind a
00:14:41
gas scooter that is puffing you know
00:14:43
pumping just toxic gas into your face
00:14:46
every day this is what people have to go
00:14:48
through every day because they didn't
00:14:50
have any other option air pollutants
00:14:52
will affect your health especially for
00:14:55
the respiratory system pollution and
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congestion is becoming a very very big
00:15:01
problem for us as we as everybody is
00:15:04
moving into cities and living on top of
00:15:05
each other so I've come to Taipei's
00:15:08
Institute of information science to find
00:15:10
out how they're tackling air pollution
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here in Taiwan dr. chen is one of the
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founding researchers behind air box the
00:15:18
idea is pretty simple help people better
00:15:20
understand and tackle the pollution
00:15:22
around them by teaching them to make
00:15:23
their own DIY low-cost air sensors since
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launching in 2015
00:15:30
they've built a network of thousands of
00:15:32
community-run air quality sensors across
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the island
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initially when people start to use their
00:15:38
local sensors to sense their environment
00:15:41
they've found a lot of interesting
00:15:43
findings which are never reported by
00:15:45
local governments so initially the
00:15:48
government doesn't like the results but
00:15:51
but finally they they realize well this
00:15:55
the the real environment people are
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living
00:16:00
today there are over 4,000 of their
00:16:02
pollution sensors around Taiwan
00:16:04
including one in every primary and
00:16:06
secondary school Sal scores may change
00:16:09
the schedule so if the air pollution is
00:16:12
more severe then they will cancel the
00:16:15
outdoor activities research like this
00:16:18
has revealed that there are a few major
00:16:20
sources of pollution in Taiwan the usual
00:16:22
suspects like industry power generation
00:16:24
and transports but also a few surprises
00:16:27
things like pollution blown across from
00:16:29
mainland China and some sources you
00:16:32
might not expect at all in Java also in
00:16:35
central Iowa there are sound new devices
00:16:38
they always show you a purple color
00:16:41
there is very very bad and the reason so
00:16:45
someone report the reason is the temples
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uh I went out to investigate and they
00:16:51
found because I sauce so what was going
00:16:54
on in the temples well by going and
00:16:56
taking a look the community discovered
00:16:58
the culprit traditional incense burning
00:17:00
you know in Taipei are the two major
00:17:02
temples the longshan temple and the Shin
00:17:05
King Kong
00:17:06
there is no incense burning anymore okay
00:17:09
yeah because they also install air box
00:17:12
and then after some observation they
00:17:14
decide to to cancel so it makes a real
00:17:17
difference knowing about the impact yeah
00:17:20
right solving a problem like pollution
00:17:22
almost certainly means changing the way
00:17:24
we do things as humans
00:17:27
remember this space well this is the
00:17:30
same spot a few weeks later and believe
00:17:32
it or not a good chunk of those bikes
00:17:33
aren't producing any pollution at all
00:17:35
this is a publicity stunt for gogoro a
00:17:38
Taiwanese startup that's pioneering the
00:17:40
uptake of electric scooters in Taiwan
00:17:44
Taiwan has the highest density of
00:17:47
scooter per capita anywhere in the world
00:17:50
as everybody's moving into cities and
00:17:52
living on top of each other and the need
00:17:55
for adopting electric transportation as
00:17:57
a cleaner mode of transportation but
00:17:59
here comes the problem chicken and egg
00:18:01
right without the proper infrastructure
00:18:03
nobody would ever adopt a mobile
00:18:06
mobility solution that is electric
00:18:08
because charging these big cities are
00:18:10
next to impossible and this is gogoro
00:18:14
solution to that problem
00:18:15
riders own special electric bikes but
00:18:18
not the batteries inside them instead
00:18:21
when they're running low on power
00:18:22
they just visit a station like this to
00:18:24
swap out their flat battery and pick up
00:18:26
a fully charged one a subscription of
00:18:28
around ten to thirty dollars a month
00:18:29
gives you access to any of the 1,400
00:18:32
swap stations around Taiwan the more you
00:18:34
pay the further you can go so Eric here
00:18:40
is very kindly agreed to give me a ride
00:18:42
around the block on one of those
00:18:44
scooters and you know what it does feel
00:18:47
a little bit different the sound is
00:18:48
slightly different there's kind of a
00:18:49
high pitch high-pitched whine rather
00:18:51
than the chug of a motor and otherwise
00:18:55
though it feels pretty much like a
00:18:56
normal moped I visited go Garos head
00:19:02
office just as they were getting ready
00:19:03
to launch their newest top-secret
00:19:05
scooter this is our new baby right
00:19:10
with a lighter weight colorful designs
00:19:12
and a grab bag of accessories gogoro is
00:19:15
trying to expand the reach of scooters
00:19:16
beyond traditional riders but with a
00:19:19
price tag of around $2,000 on just one
00:19:21
battery instead of two it might not be
00:19:23
for everyone the fact that the range is
00:19:25
a bit smaller do you think up that
00:19:26
matters we see people riding about 15 20
00:19:29
kilometres a day on average in Taiwan
00:19:32
this vehicle can provide about 70 to 80
00:19:35
kilometres so you're talking about 3 or
00:19:37
4 days between swap we think that's
00:19:40
plenty gogoro estimate that their
00:19:43
customers have saved 80,000 tonnes of
00:19:45
co2 between them that's roughly 25,000
00:19:48
across the world flights there's no one
00:19:51
magic solution to society-wide problems
00:19:54
like pollution but it's encouraging to
00:19:56
see how Taiwan is leading the way on
00:19:58
finding some new ideas Taiwan doesn't
00:20:08
look like a place with a population
00:20:10
crisis but for many too much hard slog
00:20:14
has meant too little time for family
00:20:18
some hope for a traditional solution in
00:20:21
Taiwan children getting lace and nests
00:20:24
so we worry about that so if we want to
00:20:29
get a be a family you want to be a by
00:20:33
your boyfriend or girlfriend and get
00:20:36
married this is city God temple well we
00:20:39
got a famous guy is a major making God
00:20:42
is for love so that's why so many young
00:20:44
people come here and a pretty father for
00:20:47
good marriage happiness every year we
00:20:51
got a six thousand couples they took six
00:20:55
others have turned to tech the hugely
00:20:59
successful Singaporean dating out back
00:21:02
door has been going strong here in
00:21:04
Taiwan people have no time for their
00:21:07
personal life especially in tech company
00:21:10
during work they are not even to bring
00:21:13
their phone in their company either so
00:21:16
it's really hard for them to happen no
00:21:19
more social life as I met some of those
00:21:23
leading the way in Taiwan startup scene
00:21:26
it became apparent that especially in
00:21:29
the hardware business historically
00:21:31
expectations on staff have been high
00:21:36
any call you receive you probably need
00:21:39
to answer the call and go back to the
00:21:40
fam most of time you're working six days
00:21:44
or six days and half and the other the
00:21:46
rest of half days you still need to be
00:21:47
on call so it's come or like a 24 hours
00:21:51
but times are changing the world life
00:21:56
balance is very very important for this
00:21:59
young generation and international
00:22:03
influence is often at loggerheads with
00:22:05
maintaining Taiwanese tradition
00:22:08
Taiwanese people are humble at heart
00:22:11
it's built into our Confucius belief
00:22:14
system when you manage a u.s.
00:22:15
engineering team what happens is usually
00:22:17
your job as manager is to try to get
00:22:20
everyone to argue and agree on something
00:22:23
in Taiwan the issue is trying to get
00:22:25
people to argue in the first place this
00:22:27
is because they don't offend people they
00:22:29
think that their boss should be smarter
00:22:31
more intelligent than they are but
00:22:33
that's just not the case
00:22:35
there have been many positive steps
00:22:38
forward though
00:22:40
the education raid as raising especially
00:22:44
for females so females are more getting
00:22:49
into their job rather than family we're
00:22:55
starting to see this very interesting
00:22:56
cultural shift where entrepreneurship
00:22:58
starting your own business is actually a
00:23:00
viable pathway to actually sustain a
00:23:02
family here but even for those who have
00:23:05
made it innovation still comes with its
00:23:08
challenges the shared economy when it
00:23:11
first evolved in the Bay Area you know
00:23:13
with Airbnb and other types of types of
00:23:15
businesses it was more of a disruption
00:23:17
kind of state you disrupt the the the
00:23:20
the kind of existing economy or existing
00:23:23
infrastructure it's much more difficult
00:23:25
to do that in Taiwan because it's very
00:23:28
frowned upon if there's not a law for it
00:23:30
you don't try to disrupt the industry
00:23:31
first
00:23:35
[Music]
00:23:50
that's it from clique in Taiwan it seems
00:23:54
that exciting times could lie ahead plus
00:23:57
hopefully a solution to this pollution
00:23:59
problem throughout the week you can keep
00:24:02
up with the whole of the clique team
00:24:03
wherever they are in the world on
00:24:04
Instagram Facebook and Twitter at BBC
00:24:07
clique thanks for watching
00:24:10
[Music]
00:24:18
[Music]
