Taiwan’s AI Basic Act Can Be a Model for Asia
Taiwan’s AI Basic Act Can Be a Model for Asia
https://www.techpolicy.press/taiwans-ai-basic-act-can-be-a-model-for-asia/
Publish Date: 2026-02-25 09:17:00
Source Domain: www.techpolicy.press
People walk past horse decorations displayed for the Lunar New Year celebrations in Taipei, Taiwan, Saturday, Feb. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)
On December 23, 2025, Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan passed the AI Basic Act, and on January 14, the Act was officially promulgated and entered into force by President William Lai Ching-te. The law, consisting of only 20 clauses, is intended to lay the groundwork for building a ‘smart nation’ by fostering human-centric artificial intelligence research and industry development with an emphasis on constituting a safe application environment with fundamental rights protection, in order to balance the needs of the citizens’ quality of life and the nation’s sustainable development while safeguarding national cultural values and social ethics and promoting international competitiveness.
Like many other countries, Taiwan seeks to establish its own framework to balance the need to innovate and compete with risk-based governance. However, it is taking a “principle-based” approach to its legislation, more closely aligned with the US and Japan, compared to the stricter regimes undertaken by the European Union and South Korea.
First, the law defines AI as “a system with autonomous operational capability that, through input or sensing, and via machine learning and algorithms, can achieve predictions, content, recommendations, or decisions for explicit or implicit objectives, producing outputs that affect physical or virtual environments.” Then, it establishes the governance authority and designates the responsibilities of agencies, with certain timelines for the implementation of further regulations.
Here, we summarize the strategic importance of this legislation into five main areas:
1. Establishing trust in the global AI supply chain
Taiwan undoubtedly occupies a critical role in the global semi-conductor and AI supply chain. As a result, it is important for it to demonstrate its resolve to set up a governance…
