Taiwan AI Basic Law names NSTC as central regulator

Taiwan’s AI Basic Law is one of the clearest examples yet of a mid‑sized tech power trying to get ahead of frontier AI, not just react to it. The law creates a centralized governance structure with the NSTC in charge and a National AI Strategy Special Committee under the cabinet, mirroring the way Taiwan already treats semiconductors and cybersecurity as strategic domains. It also bakes in risk‑based oversight, explicit worker protections and guardrails against AI uses that threaten safety, social order or democratic stability.

For the global race to AGI, this matters less for raw compute and more for norms. The EU has the AI Act, South Korea has its own AI Basic Law, and now Taiwan is signaling it wants to be a standard‑setter in AI governance, not just a chip foundry. That can shape how local startups, big Western labs operating in Taiwan and cross‑border cloud providers architect their systems. It also sets a precedent: jurisdictions that host critical AI hardware may insist on commensurately strong governance frameworks. Over time, that could influence where the most capable models are trained and deployed.

The big open question is how flexibly Taiwan can implement these principles. If the law becomes a living framework that enables regulatory sandboxes and fast iteration, it could actually make Taiwan a friendlier home for frontier labs. If it calcifies into checklists, it could push the most ambitious work elsewhere.