GenAI Forum: National Chung Hsing University Announces the World’s First Agriculture-Oriented Generative AI ‘Shennong TAIDE’

The emergence of ChatGPT has prompted a surge of research and development in generative artificial intelligence. On May 17, National Chung Hsing University, the National Science and Technology Council, and the Ministry of Education co-hosted the “Generative AI, Generating Your Future” forum. During the event, National Chung Hsing University unveiled “Shennong TAIDE,” the world's first agriculture-oriented generative AI, which is built on the National Science Council's “TAIDE” foundation as a specialized and precise AI repository for Taiwanese.

Since November 2023, the National Science Council has been developing a “Trustworthy AI Dialogue Engine (TAIDE)” with distinctive Taiwanese features and Traditional Chinese language. The Smart Sustainable New Agriculture Research Center (SMARTer) at National Chung Hsing University financed by the National Science and Technology Council utilizing TAIDE to create “Shennong TAIDE,” a knowledge-based Q&A system specifically tailored for the agricultural sector.

Ming-Der YANG, head of Smart Sustainable New Agriculture Research Center (SMARTer) and dean of College of Engineering, indicated that Shennong TAIDE incorporates almost 18,000 agricultural documents as well as more than 8,000 theses and dissertations from the National Chung Hsing University library. The generated responses are more closely aligned with domestic agricultural realities, providing clearer answers, as well as references for users to further research the original literature.

Yao-Zhong FAN, an associate professor at National Chung Hsing University's Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering and a member of the Shennong TAIDE development team, stated that Shennong TAIDE can help farmers, academic research units, and agribusinesses with agricultural cultivation and management in an immediate, simple, and precise manner. In addition to reading text, Shennong TAIDE can interpret tables and provide agricultural information in greater detail. A holistic system is now in development, allowing users to directly upload photos for plant disease and pest searches and diagnostics.

The GenAI Forum, focused on Taiwan's generative AI, brings together experts and scholars from Taiwan to explore the development of Taiwan's large language models and their applications in smart agriculture and smart healthcare. The forum aims to serve as a platform for interaction among industry, government, academia, and research sectors, fostering innovation exploring the potential of Taiwan's artificial intelligence. This effort seeks to increase Taiwan's international influence in AI.