AI × ESG Cross-Disciplinary Competition Enters Campuses: AI CUP Tour Courses Cultivate Sustainable Tech Talent

2026-03-13

As global enterprises increasingly prioritize sustainable development and transparency in information disclosure, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming a vital tool for analyzing corporate sustainability reports. Supported by the Ministry of Education's (MOE) AI CUP program, the "VeriPromiseESG 2026: ESG Sustainable Promise Verification Competition" campus tour held its Northern Taiwan session on March 6, 2026, at the Bo-Ai Campus of the University of Taipei. The event attracted nearly 50 students through both in-person and online participation, offering a deep dive into innovative AI applications within the ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) domain.

The event was led by Professor Min-Yuh Day, Director of the Graduate Institute of Information Management at National Taipei University (NTPU), whose research team shared competition details and technical implementations. The session was hosted by Assistant Professor Ching-Tai Chen from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Taipei. Through competition introductions, dataset analysis, and sample code tutorials, the course helped students quickly master AI techniques for analyzing corporate sustainability texts and encouraged interdisciplinary teams to participate.

VeriPromiseESG 2026 is part of the MOE’s AI CUP series (Artificial Intelligence Competition and Annotating Data Collection Project), co-promoted by National Taipei University in collaboration with Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and the University of Tsukuba. The competition focuses on the cross-disciplinary application of AI × ESG × Natural Language Processing (NLP). Participants will utilize real-world corporate sustainability reports to develop AI models that determine whether a company's sustainability promises are backed by clear, verifiable evidence, thereby enhancing the readability, comparability, and credibility of ESG disclosures.

As the first stop of the tour, the Northern session featured "Comprehensive Code Instruction." Professor Min-Yuh Day opened the course by introducing the competition background and research philosophy, guiding students through the official website and the AIdea competition platform. He detailed the registration process, scoring mechanisms, and data usage regulations. Professor Day noted that ESG has become a critical indicator of corporate governance, and AI technology can significantly increase the efficiency and transparency of verifying massive amounts of textual data.

During the technical sharing segment, project assistant Hsin-Ting Lu introduced the sources and structural fields of the competition dataset, explaining potential analytical directions to help students understand data organization and feature analysis within sustainability reports. Subsequently, assistant Wen-Tse Chen demonstrated the use of the sample code, showcasing data pre-processing workflows, program architecture, and basic model construction methods, enabling beginners to grasp the necessary technical pipeline quickly.

"Analyzing corporate sustainability reports through AI not only builds students' capabilities in data science and artificial intelligence but also helps them understand the vital role of ESG in corporate governance and social development," said Professor Min-Yuh Day. "We hope this competition allows students to learn technology while reflecting on how science can address the challenges of sustainable development."

The organizing team stated that as AI technology and sustainable governance gain attention, the convergence of AI and ESG is forming a new frontier for cross-disciplinary research. Through the AI CUP competition and campus tours, they aim to provide a practice-oriented learning platform where students can accumulate AI project experience with real-world data and scenarios while deepening their understanding of corporate social responsibility and information transparency.

"AI CUP: VeriPromiseESG 2026" is now officially open for registration. The competition runs from March to July 2026, with a total prize pool of NT$250,000 and certificates awarded by the Ministry of Education. The organizers will continue to hold campus tours in Northern, Central, and Southern Taiwan. Students from all colleges and universities nationwide are welcome to register via the AI CUP platform.

For more information:

Contact: Teaching Assistant Ya-Yen Teng Phone: 02-86741111 ext. 66894 Email: yyteng@mail.ntpu.edu.tw