Stewart Randall, who heads up our Electronics & Embedded Software practice, reflects on his experience this year at the world's largest computing expo.
Last week, I attended COMPUTEX Taipei 2024 – and wow, what a show! It felt like the whole tech world attended. I’ve never seen it so busy. If Taiwan wasn’t already on the map for tech executives and entrepreneurs, it certainly is now.
As with many tech shows over the last couple of years, AI was front and centre – and Taiwan is placing itself at the heart of this emerging industry. Nvidia and AMD CEOs, Jensen Huang and Lisa Su, took to the stage and made it clear that these chip giants rely heavily on Taiwanese suppliers to make what they do possible. Jensen went as far to say that everything Nvidia does begins in Taiwan before being introduced to the world. Both companies announced further investment into Taiwan, alongside numerous other players. The CEOs of Intel, Arm, NXP and even the President of Taiwan, Lai Qingde, also made speeches at the event.
In addition, new trends are emerging as traditional hardware cannot keep up with the lightspeed pace of AI algorithm development. New methods will have to be found to optimise algorithms, plus a heavier focus placed on AI edge compute solutions – which companies such as Kneron and Neuchips are exploring already. AI edge compute will also be crucial in certain applications where security is important.
But it wasn’t just AI, by any means! It was great to see the huge number of Taiwanese startups at the accompanying InnoVEX expo, looking to go global, as well as startups from around the world bringing their tech to the conference, in areas such as smart retail, smart factory, consumer electronics, cleantech, IoT and semiconductors. I even spoke to one startup from Chile who has developed a solution to scare birds away from wind farms!
There was a little bit of everything this year in the most exciting COMPUTEX show yet. I can’t wait to go back next year, which I’m sure will be even bigger.
Stewart Randall and Sam Leng from our Taiwan team at COMPUTEX Taipei 2024
To discuss your opportunities in Taiwan, get in touch with Stewart Randall at stewart.randall@intralinkgroup.com.