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Dancing with AI: Meet Taipei 2025 Launches Next Thursday
Organized by Business Next and Meet Startup, the 2025 Meet Taipei Startup Festival is Asia’s largest annual event for innovation and entrepreneurship. It will take place from November 20 to 22 at the Taipei Expo Dome.
This year, the festival features the theme "Dancing with AI." Startups, industry leaders, venture capitals, and government agencies from 19 countries will gather in Taipei. The event aims to connect participants with new ideas and valuable resources, inviting everyone to explore how AI is driving transformation across global industries and opening new pathways for growth.
A major highlight of the festival is the Global Startup Forum, which shares the same theme as the event. The forum will focus on the United States and Taiwan, with three guest speakers including investors, international entrepreneurs, and representatives from major enterprises.
The Neo Star Demo Show is another key event this year. Among the selected teams, 21 startups specialize in AI applications and development. The top ten teams will compete in the finals next Friday.
Meet Taipei has always championed cross-disciplinary innovation and the diverse applications of technology. This year, a total of 413 startups will be exhibiting, showing how Taiwan’s startup community is meeting the challenges of the AI era. Even as artificial intelligence rapidly changes the industry, Taiwan’s entrepreneurs remain engaged and determined to have a strong presence on the global AI trend.
Shaping the Next Decade: Industry Trends, Community, and New Finance
From computing infrastructure to product development, AI is evolving from isolated innovations into a powerful engine that drives entire industries. This transformation is redefining what entrepreneurship means and reshaping the path to growth. In the midst of these changes, Taiwan’s startups are uniquely positioned at the intersection of geographic advantage and hardware expertise, giving them a strong opportunity to enter the AI vertical application market.
To examine this trend in depth, this year’s Global Startup Forum will take a close look at how AI is reshaping the startup ecosystem.
The forum will cover a wide range of topics, from investment and talent to infrastructure and real-world applications, helping participants prepare for their next stage of growth. Several prominent speakers will join the event. Justin Lin, a partner at Andra Capital in the United States, will analyze how AI is reshaping the value chain from a venture capital perspective. Ian Huang, founding engineer at Anysphere, the company behind the AI code editor Cursor, will share insights from both the US and Taiwan and will explore how AI is changing the definition of a "10x engineer." Ching-Yao Shen, Chief Technology Officer at Wistron, will talk about the journey from building computing foundations to creating a thriving startup ecosystem.
This year, Meet Taipei is also offering a variety of in-depth sessions designed to help shape the next decade of innovation.
Meet Taipei is actively encouraging the next generation of entrepreneurs to move from the classroom into the business world. In partnership with the FITI innovation and entrepreneurship program at the National Applied Research Laboratories, the event is launching the Young Sparks Student Startup Hub for the first time. This area will feature 11 student teams in fields such as AI and medical technology. The event is modeled after official startup competitions and will include a dedicated Demo Show for these teams. It will not only showcase new trends but also give these young founders valuable opportunities for media attention, career development, and early investment.
A thriving startup ecosystem depends on both sharing and giving back. This spirit is the inspiration behind the session called "Cultivating a Sustainable Startup Rainforest", which will guide the audience through the development of Taiwan's startup community since 2010 and show how innovation continues to empower new generations.
The program brings together leading figures from the startup community, including Josephine Chao, CEO of Epoch Foundation, Fiona Chen, CEO of Taipei Co-creation Foundation for Entrepreneurs, and CEO Katie Chen, the driving force behind Bnext Media. They will discuss how to manage and pass on the spirit of community building. Key entrepreneurs like Yo Kuo, founder of BETTERMILK, and Jeff Kuo, founder of Gogolook, will join ecosystem leaders and representatives from Wistron, KPMG, 500 Global, and Headline Asia. Together, they will explore how entrepreneurial values are sustained and renewed, creating the next wave of success stories.
The event goes beyond reflection and looks toward the future. Another important session will address the global financial landscape. The WEB3 PLUS Forum will focus on one of this year’s most talked-about topics, stablecoins. Akio Tanaka, Director of JPYC, will give a keynote speech revealing insights on the market after the launch of Japan’s first yen-based stablecoin, JPYC. The event will also announce the 2025 Web3+ Most Influential People Awards, offering participants up-to-date insights from industry experts.
Neo Star Demo Show: Top 30 Startups Take the Stage
When it comes to the heart of Meet Taipei, the Meet Neo Star Demo Show, now in its fifteenth year, stands out as the most anticipated event.
This platform not only attracts attention from investors worldwide but also serves as the ticket that every startup team aspires to obtain. In past years, leading Taiwanese software companies such as Appier and Gogolook first gained recognition on the Meet Neo Star stage. This history highlights the event’s role as a launchpad for discovering promising new startups.
This year’s list of the top 30 teams highlights three key trends shaping Taiwan’s startup scene. These trends are the widespread adoption of AI across all industries, the ongoing advancement of smart healthcare applications, and the rise of Vibe Coding leading a new wave of developer innovation. The list not only reflects the festival’s “Dancing with AI” theme, but also outlines a complete blueprint for innovation in Taiwan, covering everything from applications and empowerment to the integration of cloud and hardware. The selected teams will compete in a two-stage final during the event for the top honor.
As AI becomes the driving force behind global industry transformation, Meet Taipei is committed to building a bridge that connects ideas and resources. The goal is to help all participants find their place in the AI era, explore new growth strategies, and work together to strengthen Taiwan’s position in the global AI innovation ecosystem.
Event Information
2025 Meet Taipei Startup Festival
Dates: November 20 (Thursday) to November 22 (Saturday), 9:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Venue: Taipei Expo Park, Yuanshan
Address: No. 1, Yumen Street, Zhongshan District, Taipei City
©2026 Business Next Media Corp. All Rights Reserved. No.102, Guangfu S. Rd., Da'an Dist., Taipei City 106, Taiwan