Simon Chang

Early life and education

Chang was born on 24 June 1954 in Taipei, Taiwan. His father was from Tianjin, China, who, after graduating from university, moved to Taiwan in 1948, where he worked for the Chinese Petroleum Corporation at its Kaohsiung refinery. His mother, a native of Tainan, also worked for the company, where his parents met before marrying and moving to Taipei. As a child, Chang developed an interest in engineering through his father, a civil engineer.

Chang attended Taipei Municipal Datong Junior High School, graduating in 1969. He then graduated from Taipei Municipal Chien Kuo High School in 1972. After high school, he graduated from National Taiwan University with a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in civil engineering in 1976. As an undergraduate, he completed an internship on the construction of the North-link line in Hualien County and helped to survey bridge piers near Xincheng.

Chang completed graduate studies in the United States, earning a Master of Science (M.S.) in civil engineering and structural engineering from Stanford University in 1977 and his Ph.D. in civil engineering from Cornell University in 1981 with a specialization in computer graphics. His doctoral dissertation, completed under engineers Richard H. Gallagher and Yih-Hsing Pao, was titled, "An Integrated Finite Element Nonlinear Shell Analysis System with Interactive Computer Graphics."

Academic career

After completing his doctorate, Chang returned to Taiwan and joined the civil engineering faculty of National Taiwan University (NTU), where he taught successively as a lecturer, associate professor, and full professor until 1990. At NTU, Chang introduced some of the country's first courses in computer graphics and computer-aided design. The civil engineering department also supported the establishment of a computer graphics laboratory under Chang's direction, where he pursued applications of computer graphics to civil engineering. He was promoted to a full professorship in 1983.

While at NTU, Chang became involved in plans by the National Science Council (NSC) to establish a national supercomputing facility; he and NTU computer science professor Lin Yi-peng were assigned to prepare the proposal for what became the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC). He became the center's first director and headed it from 1991 through 1997. His responsibilities during the center's establishment extended from construction of its facilities to the procurement of its supercomputer equipment. He then was the director of the NSC's Department of Planning and Evaluation from 1998 to 2000. In that position, he wrote the first government white paper on science and technology (S&T).

Acer and Google

Chang left the NSC for the private sector in 2000 and joined the electronics corporation Acer. In August 2000, Acer recruited Chang to help develop its data-center business, and he became general manager of the newly-established Acer subsidiary An-Hsin Information Services (安碁資訊), which was created to provide internet data-center and information-technology services. The company initially offered services including website and application hosting, corporate information-technology outsourcing, data storage and backup, and streaming-media infrastructure. Chang also served from 2000 to 2010 as the vice president of Acer's e-Enabling Services Business Group, whose operations included data-center and information-security services.

In 2010, Chang was recruited by Google and became the company's regional director of hardware operations in Asia, a position he held until 2012. His responsibilities included the planning, construction and operation of Google's data-center infrastructure in Asia. In September 2011, Google announced that it would invest more than US$100 million in a new data center in Changhua County, one of three data centers then being planned by the company in East Asia; Chang was one of the officials responsible for Google's Asian data-center expansion. Chang also helped the company to establish the a facility in Changhua, the company's first data center in Taiwan.

Political career

Chang was first appointed and involved in politics as a minister without portfolio of the Executive Yuan in 2012 under the Sean Chen cabinet. On March 3, 2014, the National Science Council was upgraded to the Ministry of Science and Technology, and Chang was named as its first minister. On December 8, 2014, after the ruling Kuomintang lost the local elections, Chang became the vice premier after a cabinet reshuffle.

Caretaker Premiership (2016)

On January 16, 2016, after the KMT lost the presidency and its majority in the Legislative Yuan at the 2016 Taiwanese general election, the then-incumbent premier Mao Chi-kuo resigns and refuse to stay at the position, Chang served as the acting premier while Mao is outgoing.

On 1 February, the then-incumbent President Ma Ying-jeou approve resignation of Mao Chi-kuo, and appointed Chang to form the cabinet to serve the remaining four months during the period of transition of power. As a result, Chang became the first nonpartisan premier of the history in Taiwan's politics.

2020 presidential campaign

Chang announced his independent candidacy for the 2020 Taiwan presidential election on 17 February 2019. Chang later joined the presidential campaign of Kuomintang candidate Han Kuo-yu as an adviser without halting his own campaign. In August 2019, Han formed a national policy advisory group headed by Chang. Chang's selection as the Kuomintang's 2020 Taiwan presidential election vice presidential candidate was announced on 11 November 2019.

Taoyuan mayoralty (2022–)

In May 2022, Chang was nominated by the Kuomintang as its candidate in the local elections for the Taoyuan mayoralty after a closed-door meeting of the party's Central Standing Committee. Chang was elected by 52.02% percentage of votes and assumed office in December 2022.