Taiwanese cities win awards for AI-driven urban governance

Taiwanese municipalities are receiving international and domestic recognition for integrating artificial intelligence into urban governance and disaster prevention.

In Kaohsiung, the Public Works Bureau’s “Roadside Tree Falling Risk Monitoring and Early Warning” service won an award at the 2026 Taiwan AI Excellence Awards. The system uses domestic smart sensors and advanced modeling—including CFD wind field simulation and LSTM time-series prediction—to monitor the stability of approximately 320,000 roadside trees. The technology has reduced emergency response times from 24 hours to under 4 hours and maintains a tree preservation rate of over 80%.

Taoyuan City has also achieved significant milestones, receiving the “AI Investment” award from the World Innovation, Technology, Small and Medium Enterprises Alliance (WITSA) at the 2026 Global AI Awards. Taoyuan’s AI initiatives include using voiceprint recognition to identify noisy vehicles, which increased the detection rate of illegal exhaust modifications from 0.52% to 7.04%. Additionally, the city utilizes AI-OCR and RPA to automate tax processes, saving an estimated 9,008 labor hours annually, and employs AI semantic analysis to process public grievances more efficiently.