In 2021, the government began to relax restrictions on government departments uploading data to the cloud, enabling various units to flexibly expand resources according to their needs, ensuring uninterrupted system operation and providing the public with a better government digital service experience. Therefore, for government departments, finding a locally deployed public cloud platform that strikes the optimal balance between security, compliance, and innovation is undoubtedly crucial. TWCC, Taiwan's largest AI high-speed computing public cloud, operated by Taiwan Smart Cloud Services Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "TWCC"), is clearly an ideal choice.
Lin Hsu-Shen, Deputy General Manager of the Government and Enterprise Cloud Development Division of TWCC, stated that TWCC is a world-class supercomputer built for national projects, assisting in the implementation of local AI applications and promoting digital transformation across various fields and industries. In the digital age, government digital transformation is imperative. TWCC can provide secure and compliant cloud computing services based on the needs of government agencies to promote cross-departmental integrated applications, thereby assisting government digital transformation, improving administrative efficiency, saving costs, reducing manpower burden, and achieving policy goals.
TWCC's distinguishing feature is its system, comparable to the world's fastest supercomputers, achieving milestones such as ranking 20th in the TOP500 list of the world's top 500 high-speed computing hosts and 10th in the Green500 energy efficiency rankings. Its ultra-high computing power, built through technological innovation and patents, boasts over 9 PFLOPS (9 gigabit floating-point operations per second), providing maximum performance and optimal energy efficiency through its AIHPC system. TWCC also has three data centers in Hsinchu, Taichung, and Tainan for backup and redundancy purposes. These data centers are all located within Taiwan, meaning all data remains within the country, eliminating concerns about compliance or sensitive data leaving the country. Leveraging its local advantage, TWCC provides 24/7 Chinese customer service, and even Taiwanese is spoken, offering immediate assistance to customers to resolve any obstacles, large or small.
The cybersecurity operations center operates 24/7, providing high-standard cybersecurity services for the entire cloud SOC.
Governments around the world are moving towards strategies that embrace the cloud and move government to the cloud, hoping to use convenient cloud services, the internet, and smart AI applications to assist in the promotion of public affairs, create more innovative and convenient services for the public, establish digital government, and achieve better efficiency and effectiveness so that all citizens can benefit.
Yang Zhiyuan, a senior manager at TWCC, pointed out that TWCC has a three-tiered cybersecurity protection system, from highest to lowest: national level, operational level, and tenant level. Regarding the national-level cybersecurity protection system, it has already deployed comprehensive data security, network security, APT protection, DDoS mitigation, cybersecurity management, and an information security operations center. Taking the information security operations center as an example, TWCC has a professional network team in Tainan providing 24/7 uninterrupted management and protection services for high-standard cybersecurity protection across the entire cloud SOC. It provides round-the-clock alerts for threat behaviors, reports on cybersecurity incidents, and emergency response, and can send early warnings for APT attacks. Under the 24-hour monitoring of the Information Security Operation Center (SOC), a smart security protection mechanism built on a multi-layered defense concept provides various cybersecurity protection measures from network layer access and application services, covering communication security and system security protection, and implementing a defense-in-depth detection mechanism.
Furthermore, TWCC has received the highest cybersecurity ratings, namely ISO 27017 Cloud Service Information Security and ISO 27018 Personal Privacy Data Protection certifications. These certifications represent mainstream international standards for cloud security, providing users with greater peace of mind when using AIHPC cloud services. In addition, its energy management, personal data protection, and service processes comply with international and European and American standards. It is also a representative of high-quality standards in Taiwan, having achieved DCOS® (Data Centre Operations Standard) Level-4 audit and verification. This ensures that users receive trustworthy data center management, service levels, and secure maintenance services, and is supported by a high-quality Service-Level Agreement (SLA) commitment.
As for the operational level, in addition to being based on the Information Security Maintenance Center and the SIEM responsible for correlation analysis and threat assessment, the most important thing is to connect the data centers in the north, central and southern regions to form a joint information security defense mechanism and establish a highly reliable off-site backup system.
Yang Zhiyuan said that if government agencies entrust the operation of services to the general public to TWCC, they can maintain normal operation without affecting the public's experience thanks to the highly reliable architecture.
Regarding the security of the lowest-level tenant layer, Taizhi Cloud not only protects the data center, but also sets up an additional layer of protection for individual customer projects, such as cybersecurity incident reporting, 24/7 cybersecurity incident monitoring, cybersecurity joint defense feedback, and other mechanisms.
In terms of regulations, TWCC has not only passed basic safety certifications such as ISO 27001, ISO 27017, and ISO 27018, but also attaches great importance to international regulations. It is qualified to comply with both the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
We offer 7 major solutions to meet the needs of all aspects of digital government.
Regarding solutions, Taizhi Cloud currently designs a wide variety of projects, but seven of them are relatively important for government agencies, including hybrid cloud, blockchain platform, 5G, DR off-site backup, zero trust, Kubernetes microservice platform, and cold and hot storage.
Regarding hybrid cloud solutions, considering that various organizations cannot migrate all their assets to the cloud, Taisun Cloud will assist clients in building and planning hybrid cloud solutions. Important data will be stored here, while less important data or workloads requiring greater computing power will be moved to the cloud. A blockchain platform can establish immutable protection for important data. As for 5G, it is mainly used for platform-endpoint connections, aiming to provide faster and lower-latency network services.
Furthermore, Taiwan Smart Cloud can assist users in establishing off-site backup environments and backing up data from the cloud back to the local machine. Regarding zero trust, this refers to identity-driven single sign-on, coupled with numerous verification mechanisms, ensuring that only authorized personnel can log in and control important files. The microservices platform aims to help customers migrate services to lightweight containers. In terms of cold and hot storage, it utilizes low-cost devices such as magnetic tape storage to assist government agencies in the long-term preservation of cold data.
To date, TWCC has participated in numerous successful digital government projects, such as assisting the Tainan City Government in establishing a "Smart City Operations Center." This involved not only migrating the local servers to TWCC but also providing a single management interface and real-time monitoring dashboard. The Tainan City Research and Evaluation Commission stated that acquiring more city information is the first step in implementing data governance. This platform has the potential to enable the city government to have more groundbreaking ideas about the city through imagery, thereby improving the efficiency of urban governance. It also provides more opportunities for collaboration with various departments, academic research institutions, and startups, fulfilling Mayor Huang's expectation of "transforming the ancient city with technology." The biggest highlight of this project is lowering the barrier to entry for various units to adopt AI applications, highlighting the flexibility of the platform's AI analysis applications. Combined with the platform's integrated high-speed computing resources and scalable and optimizable models, it helps the government better process and analyze increasingly complex urban governance issues and the diversity of image sources, while also making Tainan City a leader in AI-powered smart cities. Furthermore, it assisted the Chiayi County Government in migrating its grassroots agency document management system to the cloud, with TWCC providing subsequent maintenance services. On the other hand, a private hybrid cloud computing platform was built for the Academia Sinica, with the same infrastructure and computing services as TWCC on the ground, in order to provide users with a consistent operating experience, so as to retain the flexibility of hybrid applications and even seamlessly migrate to TWCC in the future.
Furthermore, Taizhi Cloud excels at designing customized and differentiated services for its clients. Yang Zhiyuan said that each client approaches Taizhi Cloud with different purposes, so Taizhi Cloud will carefully listen to the client's actual needs and then plan a high-performance, cost-effective solution that better meets the client's specific needs.
It is worth mentioning that, in addition to its superior computing power resources and technical support services, Taiwan Smart Cloud has also established close relationships with strategic partners and AI startups both domestically and internationally. Together, they promote the development of AI startups in various vertical fields, develop diverse smart applications and solutions, and help government agencies build a digital government that balances intelligence and trust.