Taiwan's Tech World Brings Chip Power and Creative Diplomacy to Osaka Expo

560 interactive installations put Taiwan's technology on show

Tech World's Life Theater surrounds visitors to the Osaka Expo with synchronized images from 560 interactive installations and a giant projection screen. The display has earned a bronze trophy in the Best Exhibit or Display category at the World Expolympics held on site, while the Taiwan backed pavilion has drawn close to one million visitors since opening in mid April.

As of September 29, 2025, with the Expo entering its final stretch, Tech World has become one of its most talked about attractions. Just outside the venue's wooden Grand Ring, the pavilion combines digital art, moving screens and interactive storytelling to explain how semiconductors support technologies that people use every day.

The setting also carries a diplomatic message. Taiwan is not a member of the Bureau International des Expositions (BIE), the body that shapes Expo participation rules, and cannot operate an official national pavilion. Tech World instead appears through Tamayama Digital Tech, a company based in Tokyo that was established in 2021 by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council.

Visitors encounter a gallery, a laboratory and an industry showroom in one experience. Mountains, forests, paintings and tiny electronic components become parts of the same story: technology made in Taiwan helps people live, learn and receive medical care, even when the chips themselves remain out of sight.

The crowds waiting outside underline the appeal of that approach. From the timber surroundings of the Grand Ring, visitors enter rooms filled with swelling soundscapes and screens that move. The route keeps groups progressing through the building while allowing time to pause and examine the installations.

Tech World's location is distinctive. The Grand Ring houses official country pavilions, while this private exhibit stands beyond it. The arrangement gives Taiwan a visible presence at the Expo without an official national label.

A company provides Taiwan's route into the Expo

Tamayama Digital Tech was created to give Taiwan a presence on an international exhibition stage where membership rules limit its participation. Backed by the trade promotion body in Taipei, the company brought together designers and technologists to build a pavilion presenting key industries through an experience accessible to a broad audience.

Tamayama's name uses the same kanji characters as Yushan, Taiwan's highest mountain. That reference connects the company's identity with the peaks and forests that shape the pavilion's design. It is a quiet expression of place, carried through scenery and visual language rather than a national emblem.

Inside the Expo grounds, the team avoids national symbols. Its signage does not name the country, and it does not use a flag. The Japanese registered private company provides the framework for a full size pavilion, allowing a distinctly Taiwanese story to be told through technology, design and hospitality.

For visitors, the arrangement means access to a prominent exhibition despite the absence of an official Taiwan pavilion. For the organisers, it creates room to show industrial strengths and cultural identity within the Expo's participation rules.

Mountains and forests shape the experience

Mountains of the Heart is the design idea running through Tech World's architecture and exhibits. Curving forms suggest mountain ridges, while light moves across surfaces like sunrise over granite. The aim is to create an emotional connection with Taiwan's landscape before introducing the electronics behind familiar technologies.

The first hall turns hundreds of moving displays into something resembling a field of flowers. A cylindrical screen shows cloud seas and cliffs, while scent cues and fine mist add physical sensations to the images and sound. The room combines the atmosphere of a theater with elements of a mountain walk, offering a memorable stop for families arriving from the heat outside.

Another gallery makes the components themselves the subject. Tiny displays form a grid across a wall, showing different classes of microchips. As light ripples across the grid, it resembles a woven tapestry. Electronic parts usually hidden inside products become something visitors can stop to inspect.

The mountain scenery and chip mosaic serve different purposes within the same presentation. The scenery introduces a sense of place; the mosaic draws attention to the many components that support modern life. Together, they connect an island's identity with its industrial capabilities without relying on national symbols.

Wristbands turn visitors into part of the display

Visitors receive wristbands that track heart rate and other basic measurements as they move through the rooms. At the end, a QR code generates a personal record of their route and the installations where they spent time. The process gives a practical introduction to the connection between sensors, data and screens.

A transparent display allows visitors to watch a digital forest unfold while still seeing the room beyond it. Elsewhere, panels that reproduce images with high fidelity and animation using artificial intelligence turn classic paintings into moving scenes. Both installations show how electronic systems can change the experience of looking at art or a landscape.

The wristband makes the technology personal. A visitor's pulse becomes a measurement that a device can collect, process and present. The final record then connects that person's movement through the exhibition with the content they encountered.

Tech World's consistent message is that careful design can make technology part of an engaging experience. The displays are theatrical, but their operation also introduces the relationship between physical signals, electronic processing and the information people see.

What a semiconductor does

A semiconductor is a material, usually silicon, that conducts electricity under certain conditions. Engineers create tiny structures in that material to make transistors, switches that turn electrical signals on and off. Billions of those switches can be placed together in an integrated circuit, commonly called a chip.

Chips perform different jobs. Logic chips carry out calculations and other processing. Memory chips store data. Sensors turn sound, motion or light into electrical signals that a processor can read. Packaging connects these components to one another and to the equipment around them.

The structures on a chip are often described with a number of nanometers. A nanometer is one billionth of a meter. Smaller numbers generally allow more transistors to fit into the same space, which tends to improve performance and reduce power use.

A heart rate reading displayed on a screen brings several of these functions together. A sensor collects a signal, a processor works with the information, and a display presents it to the person wearing the device. Tech World's wristbands make that sequence easier to understand because visitors can experience it themselves.

The microchip mosaic shows that modern electronics depend on different categories of components working together. The transparent display presents another idea: technology can become part of the surroundings rather than an obvious barrier between a person and what they are viewing. For visitors unfamiliar with semiconductor wafers or clean rooms, the artistic presentation makes the subject less intimidating and invites questions.

From phone cameras to robots

Taiwan's strength in semiconductor manufacturing sits behind the pavilion's strategic message. Its companies design, produce and package integrated circuits for products used around the world. Much of the world's advanced chip production passes through foundries in Taiwan, giving Tech World an industrial reputation on which to build.

Chips act as tiny electronic brains in devices ranging from phone cameras and medical equipment to cars and industrial robots. When a vehicle camera produces a clearer image, a chip processes the pixels. When a smartwatch measures a pulse, sensors and a processor work together in real time.

Many sensors rely on microelectromechanical systems, known as MEMS. These combine tiny moving parts with a chip to detect motion, pressure, sound or light. Such components are important to robotics and devices powered by artificial intelligence, both themes woven into the pavilion.

Hiroshi Ishiguro, an Osaka University professor and a leading figure in humanoid robotics, has linked advanced sensors with more capable robots. Explaining the abilities machines need to become useful in everyday settings, he said:

The secret to integrating robots into our daily lives lies in their ability to see, hear, and behave, just like us.

Ishiguro's focus on perception connects the pavilion's sensor demonstrations with robotics research. A machine needs ways to receive information about its surroundings before it can respond usefully. Sensors and chips supply those abilities, creating a point of connection between Taiwanese industry and Japanese research laboratories that use and test the hardware.

Recognition for the people behind the spectacle

Life Theater's bronze trophy recognises an experience built around its 560 interactive installations and giant projection screen. Tech World also received nominations in Best Detail or Element, Director's Choice and People's Choice, bringing its total to four. The American and Italian pavilions each received four nominations as well.

Felix Chiu, executive vice president at the Taiwan External Trade Development Council, praised the staff and creators responsible for the project. Describing what the awards represented, he said:

The result reflects the infinite creativity and effort invested by the team.

The pavilion team reports close to one million visitors since the opening in mid April. Visitors from Japan and Taiwan have spoken about pride in the region's strengths and curiosity about the technologies on display. Comments also point to the warmth of staff and a sense of shared values.

Those reactions give the exhibition a cultural role alongside its technology pitch. Its combination of art, hospitality and engineering reaches people across age groups, making a technical subject approachable without removing the industrial story at its center.

Taiwan's presence extends into Osaka

A Taiwan themed festival in Osaka's Umeda district brought live performances and food into the city center during the Expo run. The event extended the cultural encounter beyond Tech World's rooms, adding music, performance and food to the technology presentation on the exhibition grounds.

The pavilion and festival illustrate soft power: building goodwill through appealing experiences and cultural connections. Tech World pursues that goal through its welcome, its landscape imagery and the technologies it presents. The festival offered another setting in which people could encounter Taiwanese culture.

Japanese audiences are central to that effort. The pavilion connects Taiwan's industrial strengths with familiar needs and experiences, while the staff's hospitality adds a human dimension. Its cultural message reaches visitors through what they see and do, rather than through a formal national presentation.

Kumamoto gives the chip story a Japanese anchor

Outside the Expo grounds, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) has begun mass production at its first factory in Kumamoto. The plant focuses on process technologies from 12 to 28 nanometers, producing chips used in car electronics and image sensors for customers including Sony and Denso.

A second facility planned beside the first aims to manufacture more advanced chips using a 6 nanometer process. Operations are targeted for the end of 2027. Tokyo has committed large subsidies to increase domestic chip production, citing the need to secure critical supply chains.

The two facilities connect Tech World's demonstrations with manufacturing taking place in Japan. A visitor learning about chips in cameras and cars at the Expo can see those applications reflected in the products associated with the Kumamoto plant.

The timeline links the pavilion's opening with the wider industrial relationship:

• 2021: The Taiwan External Trade Development Council established Tamayama Digital Tech in Tokyo.
• Mid April 2025: Tech World opened at the Osaka Expo.
• September 29, 2025: The pavilion was in the Expo's final stretch, with close to one million visitors reported and a bronze trophy awarded to Life Theater.
• End of 2027: Operations are targeted to begin at TSMC's planned second Kumamoto facility.

Japan and Taiwan's semiconductor ties run through factories, research laboratories and classrooms. The Kumamoto projects give the pavilion's account a local anchor for Japanese visitors, connecting Taiwan's expertise with production and technology partnerships closer to home.

What visitors can look for inside

Queues can build during peak hours. Once visitors enter, the experience moves quickly, and most groups spend enough time to see the major installations. The Grand Ring's shaded paths provide a way to move between zones for those combining Tech World with other Expo attractions.

The wristband and QR code are useful parts of the visit. After returning the wristband, visitors can scan the code to revisit highlights on their phones and explore content they missed. The record also brings together the route and installations that formed their personal experience.

Several moments show how the pavilion combines staging with technology:

• Watch the displays resembling flowers begin moving together in the first hall.
• Stand close to the cylindrical screen during the mountain scenes to notice the mist effects.
• Look at the microchip mosaic as its tiles cycle through different electronic components.
• View the transparent screen from the side to see how the effect changes with position.
• Scan the QR code after returning the wristband to revisit the exhibition content.

These details bring the pavilion's larger argument into focus. The moving screens demonstrate coordination, the wristband demonstrates sensing and data, and the chip mosaic gives normally hidden components a visible form. Mountains and forests provide the setting for an explanation of electronics that visitors can follow without an engineering background.

Key Points

• Tech World presents Taiwan backed technology at Osaka Expo through Tokyo based Tamayama Digital Tech, established in 2021.
• Taiwan is not a BIE member, so the private pavilion avoids national symbols and stands outside the Grand Ring of official country pavilions.
• Mountains of the Heart connects Taiwan's landscape with interactive displays explaining chips and everyday electronics.
• Wristbands, scent cues, mist and a personal QR code record make visitors part of the experience.
• Life Theater's 560 interactive installations and giant projection screen earned bronze at the World Expolympics.
• Tech World received four award nominations, matching the American and Italian pavilions, and reports close to one million visitors since mid April.
• TSMC's first Kumamoto factory has begun mass production using processes from 12 to 28 nanometers; a second plant targeting 6 nanometer production aims to begin operations by the end of 2027.
• Cultural events, hospitality and Japanese technology partnerships extend the pavilion's message beyond its exhibition rooms.