Hon Hai Research Institute Unveils Taiwan’s First Traditional Chinese LLM with Advanced Reasoning Capabilities
Hon Hai Research Institute has announced the launch of Taiwan’s first Traditional Chinese Large Language Model (LLM), setting a significant milestone in the country’s artificial intelligence (AI) development. This achievement reflects a major leap in AI research and model training efficiency, with the institute successfully developing a high-performance model in just four weeks while optimizing costs and computational resources.
As an initiative backed by Hon Hai Technology Group (“Foxconn”) (TWSE:2317), the world’s largest electronics manufacturer and a leading technological solutions provider, the newly introduced LLM—codenamed FoxBrain—is designed to enhance AI-driven applications within the company’s internal ecosystem. It supports diverse functionalities such as data analysis, decision-making support, document collaboration, mathematical problem-solving, logical reasoning, and code generation. In the near future, Hon Hai plans to open-source FoxBrain, making it publicly accessible to benefit a wider range of industries.
A Breakthrough in AI Reasoning and Language Processing
FoxBrain has been designed to cater specifically to the linguistic nuances and communication styles of Taiwanese users. Unlike conventional language models, which primarily focus on general language comprehension, FoxBrain demonstrates exceptional proficiency in mathematical reasoning and logical problem-solving. The model’s deep reasoning capabilities distinguish it from other AI models currently available in the Traditional Chinese linguistic landscape.
“In recent months, advancements in AI have placed increasing emphasis on enhancing reasoning capabilities and optimizing the use of computational resources, particularly GPUs,” said Dr. Yung-Hui Li, Director of the Artificial Intelligence Research Center at Hon Hai Research Institute. “Instead of simply increasing computational power, FoxBrain adopts a highly efficient training methodology that maximizes resource utilization while refining the training process. Through carefully crafted optimization techniques, we have successfully developed a locally trained AI model with superior reasoning capabilities.”
Optimized Training Approach and Efficient Resource Utilization
FoxBrain’s training process was conducted on a robust computing infrastructure, utilizing 120 NVIDIA H100 GPUs in conjunction with NVIDIA Quantum-2 InfiniBand networking. This powerful configuration enabled the training phase to be completed in approximately four weeks—a testament to the efficiency of Hon Hai’s training methodologies.
Compared to existing inference models, FoxBrain employs a more cost-effective and computationally optimized approach, setting a new industry benchmark for AI model training in Taiwan.
Technical Specifications and Performance Benchmarks
FoxBrain is built upon the Meta Llama 3.1 architecture and features an impressive 70 billion parameters. Benchmark tests using the TMMLU+ dataset indicate that FoxBrain surpasses other models of similar scale, including Llama-3-Taiwan-70B. It particularly excels in mathematical reasoning, demonstrating a significant advantage in solving complex problems with high accuracy.
Key technical attributes of FoxBrain include:
- Data Augmentation and Quality Assessment: Proprietary technology was employed to establish data augmentation methods across 24 topic categories, leading to the generation of 98 billion high-quality tokens for Traditional Chinese pre-training.
- Context Window Length: 128K tokens, allowing the model to process extended sequences of text effectively.
- Computational Resources: Trained using 120 NVIDIA H100 GPUs with a total computational expenditure of 2,688 GPU days.
- High-Performance Training Architecture: A multi-node parallel training framework was implemented to ensure stability and computational efficiency.
- Advanced Reasoning Mechanism: Utilized an Adaptive Reasoning Reflection technique to strengthen the model’s autonomous reasoning and problem-solving abilities.
FoxBrain’s benchmark performance reveals remarkable improvements in mathematical reasoning compared to the base Meta Llama 3.1 model. When tested against Taiwan Llama—currently the most advanced Traditional Chinese LLM—FoxBrain demonstrated a significant edge in mathematical reasoning. While it slightly lags behind DeepSeek’s distillation model in certain aspects, its overall performance is on par with leading global AI models, highlighting Taiwan’s growing expertise in AI research and development.
Independent Research Leading to World-Class AI Capabilities
FoxBrain’s development journey—from data collection and preprocessing to continual pre-training, supervised fine-tuning, reinforcement learning with AI feedback (RLAIF), and adaptive reasoning enhancement—was meticulously executed through independent research efforts. Despite facing limitations in computational resources compared to AI research giants, Hon Hai’s team has successfully built a high-performance model that rivals some of the world’s best AI models.
The success of FoxBrain highlights Taiwan’s technological prowess and ability to compete on the global stage in AI model development. It also underscores the strength of local AI talent, showcasing the country’s growing influence in the broader AI research ecosystem.
Future Prospects: Open-Source Release and Industry Applications
Initially developed for internal applications within Foxconn, FoxBrain is set to extend its reach beyond the company’s ecosystem. The Group has expressed its commitment to collaborating with technology partners to expand FoxBrain’s applications across various industries.
Foxconn envisions FoxBrain playing a critical role in driving AI adoption in sectors such as:
- Manufacturing: Enhancing production processes through AI-driven predictive maintenance and quality control.
- Supply Chain Management: Optimizing logistics and inventory tracking with intelligent decision-making models.
- Smart Decision-Making: Supporting data-driven corporate strategies with advanced AI analysis tools.
Additionally, Hon Hai plans to share FoxBrain’s open-source framework with the global AI community, fostering innovation and encouraging the development of customized AI solutions tailored to specific industry needs.
Collaboration with NVIDIA and AI Ecosystem Development
During FoxBrain’s training phase, NVIDIA provided crucial technical support, including access to its Taipei-1 Supercomputer. The collaboration with NVIDIA enabled Hon Hai Research Institute to leverage NVIDIA NeMo, a cutting-edge AI framework, to optimize pre-training and model refinement processes.
Beyond model development, FoxBrain is expected to become an essential AI engine for Foxconn’s three major technological platforms:
- Smart Manufacturing: Powering intelligent automation and AI-driven optimization.
- Smart Electric Vehicles (EV): Enhancing vehicle AI systems and autonomous driving technologies.
- Smart Cities: Contributing to AI-powered urban planning, infrastructure management, and public services.
Presentation at NVIDIA GTC 2025
Hon Hai Research Institute is set to unveil FoxBrain’s research findings and technical advancements at a major AI industry conference. The model will be featured in the upcoming NVIDIA GTC 2025 session, titled “From Open Source to Frontier AI: Build, Customize, and Extend Foundation Models”, scheduled for March 20. This event will provide an opportunity for researchers, developers, and AI enthusiasts to explore the capabilities of FoxBrain and its potential impact on the AI ecosystem.
The launch of FoxBrain marks a pivotal moment for Taiwan’s AI industry, positioning the country as a competitive player in large-scale AI model development. By combining optimized training methodologies, advanced reasoning capabilities, and cost-effective computational strategies, Hon Hai Research Institute has successfully developed a powerful Traditional Chinese LLM that stands at the forefront of AI innovation.
With plans for open-source collaboration, industry applications, and continued research, FoxBrain is poised to play a transformative role in shaping the future of AI in Taiwan and beyond. As AI technology continues to evolve, initiatives like FoxBrain will serve as catalysts for innovation, bridging the gap between research advancements and practical real-world applications.
