Strategy Style, Reported by Ma Nanqing
At the 2025 Edison Awards press conference, 14 R&D achievements from the Ministry of Economic Affairs won 5 gold, 6 silver, and 3 bronze medals, with a record-breaking five winning organizations. (Photo: Front row, from left) Vice CEO of SOIC Chen Mingxian; CEO of MIRDC Lai Yongxiang; Director of DIT, MOEA Kuo Chao-chung; Minister of MOEA Kuo Chih-hui; President of ITRI Liu Wen-hsiung; Chairman of ARTC Wang Zheng-jian; and Associate Director of TTRI Huang Boxiong. (Photo: Back row, from left) Chairman of Expercy Medical Chen Chao-hui; Yang Zhijie; Chairperson of the Department of Medicine at NYCU; Operations Director of TMC Huang Yu-bin; Director of Ministry of Transportation and Communications Transportation Research Institute Lin Ji-guo; Chairman of GBC Lin Zong-qing; Chairman of AI Machine Vision Hong Zhong-yue; and General Manager of Yen Zealously Environment of Technology Zhang Ting-fu. Photo / Provided by ITRI
The Ministry of Economic Affairs announced yesterday (3rd, June) that Taiwan won 18 awards, including seven gold, seven silver, and four bronze medals, in the Edison Awards this year, competing against 400 innovative achievements from around the world. This is a record-breaking achievement. The Edison Awards are known as the Oscars of the innovation field and are highly representative. The founder of NVIDIA, Jensen Huang, also received the Achievement Award this year.
Among them, R&D entities under the Ministry of Economic Affairs won a total of 14 awards, including 5 gold, 6 silver, and 3 bronze medals. ITRI ranked second in the world in the number of awards, the MIRDC ranked fifth, and the TTRI won the gold medal. The ARTC and the SOIC won awards for the first time.
The winning technologies were all in collaboration with firms, including TMC, NTU Hospital, Chung Shing Bus, Taiwan Water Corporation, Arc'teryx, etc., demonstrating the results of technology industrialization. In addition, NYCU, Taipei Veterans General Hospital, and NTU also won gold medals respectively; GBC won the silver medal, and Chi Mei Hospital won the bronze medal.
Minister of Economic Affairs Kuo Chih-hui stated that all of this year's winning technologies were collaborated with industry partners to address practical industry key points, improve production efficiency, and create value. Nearly all of the 14 winning technologies incorporate AI applications, demonstrating the efforts of MOEA to leverage AI to drive innovation across diverse industries.
The minister of MOEA emphasized that the current inventory of 10 major corporate equipment and facilities, covering 16 industries, and the launch of 50 AI pilot lines. These are intended to help industries accelerate their transition from R&D to implementation, enhance their competitiveness, and cultivate AI implementation talent within businesses.
Smart Aqua Leak Finder combines localized leak diagnostic equipment with AI algorithms, integrating 5G and AIoT technologies to precisely locate leaks in pipe networks, creating a high-performance smart detection solution that saves the equivalent of a medium-sized reservoir's worth of water annually. (Picture: From left) Zhang Hongzhi of the Materials Science and Engineering Research Institute (ITRI); Tsai Yao-Lung, Manager of the Materials Science and Engineering Research Institute (ITRI); Zhao-Chung Kuo, Director of the DIT (MOEA); Chih-Hui Kuo, Minister of the MOEA; Liu Wen-Hsiung, President of ITRI; and Chiu Kuo-Chin, Director of the Materials Science and Engineering Research Institute (ITRI). Photo / Provided by ITRI
ITRI stated that among the three gold, three silver, and one bronze awards, the gold medal for its Smart Aqua Leak Finder System addresses the challenge of increasingly scarce water resources. Traditional pipeline inspection methods are time-consuming and susceptible to environmental influences, making leaks difficult to detect and costly to repair.
This technology uses AI-based ground vibration and acoustic analysis to process acoustic data in real time, enabling rapid identification and location of leaks, reducing repair costs with an accuracy rate of 98%. To date, the collaboration with Taiwan Water Corporation has identified 834 leaks, saving 10.94 million tons of water annually. The technology is expected to expand globally, particularly in historic cities in Europe, enabling precise leak detection without damaging monuments and optimizing water resource management.
In addition, hundreds of thousands of tons of discarded LCD glass and over 100 billion tons of metal wastewater are generated annually worldwide. Traditional treatment methods involve either landfilling or low-level recycling, often resulting in resource waste and environmental pollution. The gold medal technology NaPoGlass addresses both waste issues simultaneously.
Patented nanopore technology is used to create highly efficient metal ion capture materials for metal wastewater treatment. Metal recovery does not produce sludge, water resources can be recycled, and water consumption can be reduced by 50-90%. Compared with chemical coagulation and sedimentation methods, it can reduce carbon emissions by approximately 100 tons for every 10,000 tons of water treated. It has been used in the semiconductor and electroplating industries to help companies achieve green transformation.
Another gold medal, the ‘Breakthrough Multi-functional Thermo-responsive Hydrogel,’ is an innovative biomedical material with high biocompatibility and can be absorbed by the human body. It is liquid at low temperatures and it gels rapidly after injection, forming a stable protective layer that adheres to damaged tissue for up to 30 days.
This medical device significantly improves its effectiveness compared to traditional hydrogels, which only last for one day. It has been used in clinical trials for treatments such as herniated discs and degenerative arthritis. Patents have been granted in Taiwan, the United States, and Europe, and the technology has spawned the creation of Expercy Medical, which is expanding into the global dental and surgical markets.
The ARTC has developed Taiwan's first Level 3 self-driving electric bus, which combines radar sensing and AI image recognition to achieve five major self-driving functions, including lane centering, obstacle avoidance steering, and lane changing. It can also monitor conditions such as driver eye closure and line of sight deviation. Currently, it cooperates with two bus manufacturers and domestic automotive sensor and system manufacturers such as ELAN Microelectronics, oToBrite, CubTEK, DFI Inc. and Arcadyan Technology. It can be used in urban bus lanes to enhance the development of smart transportation. Photo / Provided by ITRI
The MIRDC received one gold, two silver, and one bronze medal for four technologies. The gold medal went to the Magnetic Positioning Precision ICH Surgical Navigation System, which utilizes 3D magnetic positioning multifunctional endoscope technology to provide doctors with multi-dimensional penetrating vision, enabling intracranial vision like a GPS in a tunnel. The system integrates precise magnetic sensors and a multifunctional endoscope to achieve multimodal imaging fusion for intracranial surgical navigation.
It can accurately and quickly reach the hemorrhage sites, reducing the risk of repeated punctures and rebleeding. The system also reduces intraoperative radiation exposure by 80% and lowers the mortality rate from 25% to 5%. The technology is now being clinically developed with ClearMind Biomedical Inc and the Neurosurgery Department of Kaohsiung Veterans General Hospital, expected to enhance stroke treatment safety and success rates.
The Institute of Textile Research also won the gold award for its AI-powered self-learning fabric inspection system. Previously, fabric inspection relied heavily on manual visual inspection, which was susceptible to fatigue and had a high error rate. This innovative technology, combining AI algorithms with high-resolution optical technology, not only enables high-speed fabric defect detection but also possesses self-learning capabilities, continuously optimizing its recognition of various defect images.
This allows for a wider variety of fabrics to be tested, with inspection speeds reaching up to 120 yards per minute, far exceeding traditional inspection machines, and an accuracy rate of up to 95%. Currently, the company is collaborating with Arc'teryx, Evertex, and others to promote smart fabric inspection technology and comprehensively enhance the competitiveness of the textile industry in Taiwan.
ITRI reminds companies interested in implementing AI pilot lines or participating in related training programs that they can contact and apply for these services starting today. The contact number offering AI pilot lines and training services is 0800-005-288, or you can search for "AI pilot lines and training services" on the website of ITRI.
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