Zeng Guoguang, President of US defense company Shield AI, talks about Taiwan-related cooperation: helping countries establish sovereign AI

During her recent visit to the United States, Kuomintang legislator Chen Jinghui visited the American defense technology company Shield AI and was personally received by co-founder and president Brandon Tseng. When asked about this matter at a media briefing in Taipei today (2nd), Zeng Guoguang said that no matter which country he is in, he will meet with political leaders of different political parties to answer their questions about drones, AI, industry and war, "because the more information they have, the better decisions they can make in terms of policy, resource allocation, etc."

Zeng Guoguang said that Shield AI has cooperated with the Netherlands, Greece, India, the United Arab Emirates, Taiwan, Japan and other countries. Politicians in various countries generally want to know more about future warfare, drones and AI, and Shield AI is not only regarded as a pioneer of thought, but also a practitioner with practical experience. As for the content of the talks, he did not want to disclose details.

Please read on...

Chen Jinghui posted on Facebook on September 27 that Zeng Guoguang is a Taiwanese-American and a fifth-generation descendant of Zeng Guofan. He has served in the U.S. Navy for seven years and has SEAL experience. She pointed out that from the 12 V-BATs purchased by the Coast Guard to the demonstration of the Hivemind-equipped Sea Shark unmanned vessel by Thunder Tiger in Pingtung, Taiwan's air and maritime reconnaissance and intelligence search capabilities have been enhanced. She also invited Shield AI to visit Kaohsiung to examine cooperation opportunities. She pointed out that Kaohsiung has the Asia Bay AIoT industry foundation and harbor and maritime application needs, and hopes to connect local companies and schools.

Chen Jinghui also emphasized that Taiwan should gradually establish a one-stop on-site support chain from maintenance, software adjustment, technology updates to personnel training. When talking about the Chinese Academy of Sciences' interest in Hivemind today, Zeng Guoguang pointed out that not only Taiwan, but also many countries do not want to ask the United States or Shield AI to modify and update AI models when facing new threats during wartime. Instead, they hope to have sovereignty over the AI ​​and autonomous capabilities of drones. This is the core of Shield AI's cooperation with various countries and institutions such as the Chinese Academy of Sciences to assist each other in establishing "sovereign AI" development capabilities.

Chen Jinghui mentioned in the post that the Kuomintang pushed for the passage of a 240 billion yuan drone regulation. After the regulation is passed, the budget must be carefully reviewed from safety, delivery schedule to logistics maintenance. The Legislative Yuan passed the Kuomintang version of the "Regulations on Strengthening National Defense Independence and Development of the Unmanned Vehicle Industry" on the third reading on August 27, specifying an annual budget of 240 billion yuan for six years. In the 2015 supplementary budget passed by the Executive Yuan on September 3 and awaiting review by the Legislative Yuan, the drone procurement budget is approximately 145.7 billion yuan.

According to previous reports by this newspaper, the Navy has allocated a total of 36 billion yuan in the 2016 defense budget from 115 to 2018 to purchase 280 ship-based intelligent vertical take-off and landing drones. Zeng Guoguang declined to comment on the Navy case, but said he was aware of the budget requirements for AI vertical take-off and landing drones, which would be an open bidding process. Shield AI hopes to have a "very open and fair competition" like participating in the Coast Guard's bid, and is confident that it has the most mature combat experience in the world and a Group 3 intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance drone that can operate when GPS and communications are interfered with.