COMPUTEX 2018 Ends Successfully as the World's Best Smart Solutions and Gaming B2B Sourcing Platform

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COMPUTEX 2018 was co-organized by Taipei Computer Association (TCA) and Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) ended on June 9. The 5 day event had 1,602 exhibitors in 5,015 booths and was attended by 42,284 global visitors from 168 countries and regions. The highest numbers of international visitors come from USA, Japan, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Germany, India, and the Philippines.

The highlights of this year’s COMPUTEX are: AI, IoT, Blockchain, 5G and Gaming & VR. In addition, COMPUTEX also has 2 special exhibitions: the startup focused InnoVEX which ended on June 8 and the smart IoT focused SmarTEX. InnoVEX attracted 17,867 visitors to the exhibitions, forums, matchmaking sessions, pitch contest, and demos; an increase of 18% from last year. This has been a successful year for COMPUTEX and will grow to even higher heights in next year with the new exhibition hall to be used. COMPUTEX 2019 is scheduled to be held from May 28 to June 1.

COMPUTEX as the Main Smart Solution Procurement Platform

Smart solutions which combine AI and IoT were one of the main features of COMPUTEX. In the COMPUTEX forum, the speakers shared the latest trends and insights on AIoT as the technology brings a smarter future. The forum also highlighted how important smart manufacturing is; as an average of 30% of GDP in most countries are based on manufacturing, introducing AI or IoT can increase the overall output value significantly.

AIoT aims to not only improve efficiency, but also empower people. For example, one of the exhibitors of COMPUTEX, Micro-Star INT’L CO., LTD. offers AIoT solution allows their call system to work for 24 hours by re-routing calls to available agents across the world. They combined Edge Computing with Cloud Computing and AI to allow their system to offer the most effective and efficient routing to maximize not only customer satisfaction, but also their value proposition.

One of the smart transportation solutions were offered by ATrack with their Best Choice Award winning product AX11 4G Cat M1 GPS Tracker. The device uses the latest 4G LTE CAT M1 communication technology and enhances real-time human/vehicle interactions, and supports diverse vehicle diagnosis systems. The intelligent event engine also helps fleet management by improving functions such as satellite positioning monitoring, automatic monitoring and early warning systems.

TCA stated that companies such as Askey, Asus, BenQ, Compal, Delta, ELAN, Elitegroup, Etron, Geovision, Gigabyte, HABOOK, Intel, ITRI, Microsoft, MiTAC, MSI, NVIDIA, QCT, Realtek, Shuttle, Supermicro, SYSCOM, Wiwynn, IDB Data4Matching, The IDB Taiwan Cloud Expo showcased smart solutions in retail, healthcare, security, homes, transportation, cities, police, finance, education; IoV; and robots. All of which can be tailor-made or customized according to the users’ needs. Smart retail, smart industry, and smart healthcare are the three major topics for this year's exhibitors; making COMPUTEX the best procurement platform for smart solutions.

Gaming and VR as One of the Highlights of COMPUTEX

In COMPUTEX 2018, more gaming products were exhibited; including gaming laptops, SSD, DDR4 memory, monitors, live streaming equipment, and even chairs. The exhibitors include Acer, Acrox, ADATA, ASRock, ASUS, AVerMedia, Cooler Master, HEC, etc. FSP, GeIL, Gigabyte, G.Skill, In Win, KWorld, Linkworld, MSI, MSI, Razer Taiwan, Solytech, Thermaltake, Tul, ZOTAC, and more. One of the main crowd-pullers is the ASUS ROG phone which is specifically designed for gaming and comes with a variety of accessories. VR is also quite popular in InnoVEX, especially in the XR-EXPRESS pavilion where startups showcased VR content and concepts with more applications than just gaming.

Bioinspira is the InnoVEX Pitch Contest Grand Prize Winner

Over 3 days, InnoVEX 2018 hosted 388 startups from 21 countries. Nearly 40% of them are international startups.

In addition to the exhibition, InnoVEX also hosted forums featuring over 60 speakers across 6 major topics of Startup Ecosystem, AI, Blockchain, Women Entrepreneurship, Future Mobility, and Gaming. The speakers include the Founder & CEO of Girls in Tech, Adriana Gascoigne; the Head of Engineering of IOTA Foundation, Edward Greve; Lead User Experience & Interaction Design of BMW, Dr. Mario Urbina Cazenave; and a host of speakers covering the applications of AI in innovation, enterprise, 5G/ IoT/ Smart City, Health/ Medicare, Pharmaceutical, and Fintech. The forums were viewed 696,324 times in the livestream.

The InnoVEX Pitch Contest Final round was held on June 8 where the 8 finalists from Taiwan, US, Philippines, and China pitched in front of the panel of judges. The finalists’ categories are: Security, Enterprise Software, Consumer Tech, AI & Big Data, AR & VR, Health & Biotech, and Hardware.

“The competition was getting better every single year.” the Chief Judge, Anis Uzzaman said. “I was really excited to see so many great companies. The level of the companies was the best so far and I feel that it was a great competition overall.” The Grand Prize of USD 30,000 went to BioInspira; a materials science company from United States that harnesses biology to provide low cost and highly accurate sensors for real time detection and analysis of air chemicals in industries.

In addition to the grand prize from the organizers, there are also special prizes from the sponsors. The Delta Electronics, Inc. Special Award of USD 10,000 was awarded to OneWatt Solutions. Nogle Limited & Maxceed Capital Group special prize of USD 10,000 was awarded to Kloudless. Taiwan's SMEA Startup Terrace Awards are given to A-Volute, Tempow, Origami Group Limited, Kloudless, and OneWatt Solutions. The winners of the Startup Terrace Award will are awarded USD 60,000 each and are invited to enter the Linkou Startup Terrace for 1 year with a discounted rate.

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