While many still believe the US-China tech war will be over along with the end of the US presidential election, most China experts at US think tanks believe it will be difficult for the two superpowers to return to their pre-trade war relationships.Alex Capri, a senior fellow at the National University of Singapore, and a research fellow at the Hinrich Foundation, believes the US-China confrontation will extend from the technology sector - which he describes as ground zero - to other areas. During a recent interview by Digitimes, Capri - a former partner and regional leader at KPMG's Asia Pacific Trade and Customs Practice, and a former international trade specialist with the US Customs - explains what he calls "techno-nationalism" in the US-China disputes and analyzes post-pandemic and post US-election development for the global supply chain.Q: The US-China technology cold war is intensifying. Do you think their confrontation is going to expand to other fronts?A: Yes, I think so. There are strategic industries that will inevitably decouple. It doesn't mean all trade will cease. But there will be significant bifurcation of trade between the US and China around strategically sensitive issues.The technology sector is of course, ground zero. When we talk about industries of the future, foundational and emerging technologies, we will see export controls and weaponization of supply chains on the US side, expand beyond hard technologies such as semiconductors, and focus increasingly on data.How data is extracted, who has access to data, and so on, is exactly what we've seen now with WeChat and TikTok and the Trump administration's executive orders last week. I expect that these executive orders will expand to cover the parent company of WeChat, TenCent, and the BAT - Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent - companies, in general. Any major Chinese digital platform company is now fair game for different kinds of sanctions and controls.There are multiple facets to what I referred to as "techno-nationalism." There is the "national security" element, which involves technology or data and whether it is harvested or used to endanger national security, in some way, or whether it is related to military, defense, or cyber intrusion and cyber security. Whether it is cyber espionage or corporate espionage, theft of IP - all of these things are now directly tied to national security and tethered to the use of technology. Then there is the economic side of techno-nationalism, where countries promote their national champions. From an economic standpoint, this is a mercantilist kind of view of the world. This view is accelerating fragmentation and decoupling in global value chains. The third element of techno-nationalism involves the use of technology to suppress, or promote ideological and political values using different kinds of technologies. For example, how is technology used to protect or infringe data privacy, or, to censor, to suppress information, to conduct surveillance of populations, or to produce fake news - essentially, propaganda. This clash of values is now central to the ideological systems involving China and the US and liberal democracies, in general. How technology is used or may not be used, is going to dictate which business relationships and transactions are acceptable and which ones are restricted. We are seeing this play out through the imposition of export controls, and, more and more, companies being put on restricted entity lists. That is all playing out.Q: Yes, it's essentially the struggle between the different ideological values of China and the US. In Taiwan we are paying much attention to the semiconductor industry. There was a report from Wired, saying that there was a hacker attack on some of the high-tech companies in Taiwan. How valid or credible do you think it is?A: I don't doubt that. Although I don't have specific proof for this. But it is such a strategic industry. It is absolutely vital for the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) to try to catch up, because semiconductors is an Achilles heel for China Inc. There are still no Chinese companies that can produce state-of-the-art microchips. The latest move of the US to close the loopholes regarding the "foreign produced direct product rule" now prevents third parties in overseas jurisdictions from selling semiconductors to Huawei and Hisilicon, if those semiconductors are made with US manufacturing equipment, and/or US software and IP. As you know, TSMC has announced they would no longer supply Huawei and Hisilicon. That scenario, in the future, can potentially hit Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu as well, because their hardware infrastructures also require US semiconductor technology and there are no viable substitutes.Since the trade war began in 2018, there has been an exponential increase in corporate cyber-attacks in virtually all sectors. So, semiconductor industry would be a major target for cyber espionage at this point.Q: Can Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu also be impacted by the export restriction of semiconductors?A: They could be. So far there are still many companies that have not been put on the entity lists, such as SMIC. And certainly Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent are vulnerable. One might ask why the US administration would consider doing that, because these (TikTok and WeChat) are social media platforms, and they have a tiny market share in the US. The argument is: yes, that maybe true, but they are part of the China Inc ecosystem. From the techno-nationalist point of view, it's part of that economic footprint, ideological footprint, and security-risk footprint. Those companies are building cloud, digital infrastructure, and, not to mention that Tencent is building the blockchain infrastructure for the Chinese government for its cryptocurrency, or the e-renminbi. That is a very strategic geopolitical move on the part of Chinese government, as it tries to decouple from the US dollar. Again, in order to achieve much greater financial independence, they will continue to pursue their geopolitical objectives, including making the renminbi the primary currency of international trade with their regional trading partners. This is part of the much greater geopolitical rivalry that's going on, and so any of these companies, from a techno-nationalist standpoint, are vulnerable, and they are fair game for US sanctions and other export controls.Q: You shed light on the Eastern Asian Currency Initiative in your previous paper. It seems lately China has been ramping up speed testing their cryptocurrency. It will soon expand the trial to other major cities in key areas and ready for launch. How soon do you think we will see the decoupling of the e-renminbi and the US dollar?A: That's a difficult one to answer. It's not going to be that easy, because the US dollar is by far still the dominant currency, accounting for more than 60% in central bank reserves all over the world. But a certain group of countries are supportive to China's efforts to move to a digital currency, that would include the Iranians, the Russians and the North Koreans, and, to a lesser extent, EU companies that have become collateral damage to US sanctions against, for example, Russian entities. Essentially any country that would be subject to US sanctions would want an alternative currency. Since the dollar is the primary currency used in most trade, especially commodities, countries like Iran and Russia, which are rich in natural gas and oil, are stuck using the dollar. If they are using the dollar, that transaction can be traced all the way back to the US banking system. And the US government can impose sanctions on those banks, as well as those parties that are involved. So I would answer that Beijing would decouple from the US dollar as quickly as possible. If they are successful, this will further decouple and drive the world into more fragmented trading blocks. And you have to ask, if a trading block is held together with the renminbi, are the values of the Chinese companies going to be pre-dominant? Most likely that would be the case. That brings a very interesting counter measure from the US, that is: does the US government start to promote using Libra or other convertible currency, because it is directly and freely convertible to the US dollar?The other thing that is interesting is that, if one looks at the business model of the BAT companies, they are innovative not because of unique technologies, but because the technologies they are using are ubiquitous and even built on western open-sourced platforms.We are now seeing social media firms in the US starting to adopt models of their (BAT) payment platforms for all kinds of reasons. They kind of encircle their ecosystems, and have more access to their data, and again, this becomes an issue with the digital currency. When every transaction is becoming digital - everything is done with a QR code - that, again, provides power and control to a central government. It's enormous amount of control, and we run into data privacy issues again. Suppression and denial of people's access to a digital monetary system based on social credit scores, so to speak, in that regard we are going to see more fragmentation of the global financial landscape. The liberal democracies of the world will say, "Look, if adopting digital currency means that citizens essentially give up their rights of privacy, or if they choose not to participate in the monetary system they are marginalized to the point that they cannot participate in the economy," I don't see digital currency becoming the only alternative for democracies. I think you will still see a two-track process where you can do all kinds of things with digital cash, but you still have an option to pay in cash. In some ways that may not be a good thing because you can have black markets, criminal organization payment networks, tax evaders etc. But until a system based entirely on digital currency provides or allows for privacy and choice, we are going to see different emergent systems.Q: Yes, essentially it is an ideological value system diversity issue.A: Indeed, and the monetary system is a belief system based on trust and values. But what we are seeing as a game changer right now is the technology. That changes everything.Q: But is it possible for the US government to develop its own digital currency?A: We will see that. In the US, it will not be a government initiative. It will be through public-private partnership. The government will probably encourage Amazon, Google, or the other FAANG companies, to come up with some kind of universal digital currency. There have been talks about the COVID-19 making the US dollar lose some value. But I think in the long run, there is no alternative. For the digital renminbi, maybe you can see the countries along the Belt and Road, emerging countries in central Asia and parts of Africa, adopting it. We are in super early days of mercantilist competition. The US and the West has just woken up. It is like they got slapped a couple of times hard and woke up to this new reality. Now they are going to alter their behavior. We will see a re-orientation to a much more mercantilist system. That is going to lead to a more fragmented global economy - a fragmented Internet, fragmented markets, more localized production, and so forth.Q: As the US is trying to catch up with semiconductor production, and China is of course doing the same for the purpose of meeting its Made-in-China 2025 goals, can there be over-supply in the future? Do you think they will achieve their goal?A: Yes. US semiconductor companies, in terms of revenues and global share, are now a little more than half of the world revenues. So, they are still dominant in that regard. If you look at the value chain of semiconductors, which is broken into research and development, design, foundry, testing, and packaging, 80% of the value is in the design and the manufacturing portion. Most of the US semiconductor industry has outsourced that manufacturing portion, and the biggest percentage of that is with TSMC and UMC. The trade war and COVID, which further exacerbated the techno-nationalist issues we've been discussing, sort of brought that to light. The US government sees it cannot afford to be vulnerable to having such a big portion of semiconductor manufacturing off-shore to Taiwan.We just discussed all kinds of cross-strait tension, cyber-infiltration, the possibility of sabotage, IP theft and so on. The US is committed to reshoring a significant portion of semiconductor manufacturing. That is now underway. We are in very early stages. It is well-known that TSMC has already pledged to build a US$12 billion in Arizona. But beyond that, there is US$30 billion funding in the first tranche in government spending to get production back to the US. That will happen. That happened before. Go back to the 1980s, Japan became the most advanced nation in terms of semiconductor design and manufacturing capabilities. The US responded with a public-private partnership called Sematech. Within 10 years, the US semiconductor industry had leapfrogged. Semiconductor for sure is an industry of strategic importance that is going to be re-shored and re-fenced to a certain degree. Other strategic industries such as pharmaceuticals, will also be re-shored.As for whether the goals of MIC 2025 can be achieved, I think they have miscalculated, and that is a serious example of overreach. China absolutely over-stepped what they were able to. They pronounced this MIC 2025 plan, in which all core industries require semiconductors, and they are a long way from having the capability to produce these semiconductors. And the CCP doubled down and came out with a China Standards 2035, saying that Chinese companies are going to dominate global standards such as 5G. Doing all of these subsequently at the time when militarizing islands in the South China Sea, and imposing national security law at Hong Kong, you couldn't have drawn this up any worse in terms of a foreign policy bungle, given the backlash and the blowbacks we are seeing. So, no. No, I don't think they are going to meet their goals by 2025, not even close, when it comes to semiconductors.But you could look at it another way. This is a 21st century "Sputnik moment" for the United States. And Western Europe is basically saying, "OK, game on!" I would argue, when the US is so paralyzed by its divisive national politics, I can't think of a better way to unite a country, and to come up with a new wave of public-private partnerships, than to name China a new technology and economic rival. This is a new Moon-shot Moment for the West.Q: The Beijing government seems to have done a good job controlling the pandemic and have its economy rebounded from the low, while the US is still in deep water. What can we expect from the future development?A: That is a testimony to the Chinese juggernaut. China has always been good at doing things at scale. They have decades of successful experience in building infrastructure at scale. To see them building those hospitals from ground up in Wuhan, that was an awesome display of autocratic efficiency. No question about that. When the Chinese Communist Party set their eyes on something, they can accomplish a lot. You contrast that to Western liberal democracies, which are, of course, by nature, prone to political paralysis and partisanship. There is, to a large degree, political paralysis like that in the United States. There is no question that liberal democracies have not handled the pandemic anywhere near as efficiently as some technocratic governments in Asia. COVID will provide an interesting lesson going forward, but it would be a huge mistake interpreting it as the validation for the ultimate decline of the United States or the West.There is no question that there will be people in China who look at the United States and say, "These guys can't even manage themselves out of a wet paper bag! Why are we worrying about these guys?" But the real strength of the US will emerge. The US economy and political system is resilient and will survive Donald Trump. It is going to make a comeback and if it needs to reinvent itself, it will. The institutional systems are still sound, and the checks and balances are still working. And you have a wide range of public-private partnerships, which I think will be the key to the 21st century. This is not a top-down, centralized system of government. It's a public-private partnership government, where government plays a supporting and promoting role. But when you throw in the vast US entrepreneurial sector, the open and free market, and the universities, think-tanks and knowledge economy ecosystems, the synergies can be huge.Q: So, no matter who wins in the presidential election, there is no going back for the US-China relations?A: The US-China trajectory would not change with Democrat or Republican winning the election. What will change, of course, if Mr Biden is elected, is a much more organized and articulated policy when it comes to China. That would mean mending fences with allies, and probably building a new coalition to build a new rule-frameworks. We are still at the early, early days with the digital landscape. It requires a new e-WTO, for example. And we also need clearer guidelines around privacy, and all the things we talked about. From a multilateral perspective, we can again see the world fracturing into different blocs, where liberal-democratic countries are members of the multilateral frameworks that promote their own values and non-democratic countries are not going to be a part of that. You cannot separate the application of technologies from those values.Q: But would that mean the production costs for manufactures will go up?A: Yes, invariably there will be instances that represent the Galapagos Syndrome. We probably won't have the same efficiency of markets that we had with fully rationalized, open global value chains. But again, the full global trading system is not sustainable, unless everybody is playing by the rules. And when the world's second largest economy is not playing by the rules, it's not a sustainable system.You have fenced-off ecosystems that are not particularly efficient and could not compete on an international basis if they are left on their own. We saw this happen in Japan in the telecommunications space in the 1990s. Can that happen again? Yes of course. But in a neo-mercantilist world, where it's about the nation state and its interests, or its aligned interests with other nation states around specific values, that's the way it is.

The stay-at-home economy continues to boost demand for PCs and related components such as motherboards and graphics cards with major vendors and makers all expected to see rising shipments in the second half of 2020. However, Taiwan-based backend houses are not as optimistic about the second half as the US' trade ban on Huawei may still influence MediaTek's shipments to the Chinese smartphone vendor. Strong demand for 5G handsets has prompt LTCC makers to expand their capacities in order to satisfy clients' increasing orders.Notebook, mobo, graphic card shipments to sustain growth in 2H20: Taiwan-based vendors of notebooks, motherboards and graphic cards are expected to sustain robust shipment momentum in the second half of the year, driven partly by stronger-than-expected demand supporting the stay-at-home economy and partly by growing rush orders shifted to them as US-China trade tensions intensify, according to industry sources.Taiwan backend houses cautious about 4Q20: Taiwan backend houses are cautious about business prospects for the fourth quarter of the year thanks to upcoming disruptions in MediaTek shipments to China's Huawei under the latest tough trade ban against the Chinese tech group, according to industry sources.Taiwan LTCC makers keen on capacity expansions for 5G: With LTCC (low temperature co-fired ceramic) demand for 5G handsets to grow at least 30-40% from 4G handsets, Taiwan's makers in the segment are actively proceeding with capacity expansions to meet the demand, according to industry sources.

Some smartwatch vendors have adjusted their supply chains, either by switching related suppliers or relocating production bases, to adapt to changing global micro situations in order to sustain the highest amount and stable benefits over the past two years, Digitimes Research has found.Among the top-5 vendors, China-based Huawei and Garmin, whose manufacturing bases are located in Taiwan, have not made much changes to their supply chains, but Apple, Samsung Electronics, and Fitbit are those that have been forced to overhaul their supply chains, including efforts to build manufacturing facilities in India.Although Apple has strengthened its supply chain in China by adding China-based Luxshare Precision Industry into its supplier list for Apple Watch products and Taiwan-based Quanta Computer has opted to reduce its role in the related supply chain, the Chinese maker may not be able to significantly ramp up its Apple Watch shipments due to rising anti-American sentiment in China.Samsung has relocated its panel manufacturing and assembling facilities for its smartwatch products to India to tap the vast domestic demand in the country, Digitimes Research indicates.Fitbit, which ranks second in the wearables segment and has been acquired by Google in 2019, is likely to realign its supply chain deployment as its major ODM partner Flextronics has decided to withdraw from China due to its conflicts with Huawei. As a result, Taiwan-based ODMs may receive more windfall orders from Fitbit.China-based smartwatch brands, including Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo and Realme have been less affected by geopolitical situations in the near term as their markets and manufacturing facilities are mostly located in China. These brands have also made significant revenue gains from the India market and have further enhanced their deployments by calling for their supply chain makers to also set up factories in the country.However, the relationships between China and India have become more intense recently, which may undermine the efforts of Chinese brands for further developing their market in India. This may allow Samsung to make more gains in India, reshaping the market share of major brands.

Global shipments of the next-generation iPhone devices (tentatively named iPhone 12 lineup) are expected to total 63-68 million in the second half of 2020, a reduction of over five million units compared to the amount shipped a year earlier for the iPhone 11 lineup, according to the latest forecast of Digitimes Research.The projection comes as the timings for volume production and official launch of the new iPhone series are likely to lag four to six weeks behind original schedules affected by the coronavirus pandemic, Digitimes Research said.However, the pending amount of extra unemployment benefits to be released by the US government could affect the scale of actual shipments of the iPhone 12 lineup by as many as10 million units in second-half 2020.Additionally, if WeChat, a Chinese multi-purpose messaging, social media and mobile payment app developed by Tencent, is no longer available on the App Store in China or pre-installed on the new iPhone devices, shipments of all iPhone products in 2020 will be nearly 10% lower than the original estimate of 190 million units, Digitimes Research forecasts.In addition to adding a dark blue model, for the first time, into the iPhone family products, Apple also brings a number of specification upgrades to new iPhones, including camera modules, displays and communications modules.While all new iPhone products will come with facial ID functionality and support mmWave 5G technology, the top-end model of the iPhone 12 lineup will be equipped with a ToF camera and the wide-angel lens of its rear camera will also come with sensor-shift optical image stabilization functionality.Foxconn Electronics and Samsung Display are the major beneficiaries of the iPhone supply chain, as the former remains the primary supplier of smartphone frames and assembler of the new iPhone products, and the latter is the exclusively supplier for a variety of AMOLED panels, Digitimes Research notes.

Huawei, hit hard by the US trade ban that is depriving it of support from various semiconductor companies, including TSMC, has slowed down its pace of orders to its handset ODMs. Huawei now stands to lose a major portion of its shares to its competitors in China's smartphone market. The handset brand is not the only Chinese firm troubled by the US trade ban. Foundry startup HSMC's fate is in limbo after its investors - reportedly with connection to China's military - suspended funding, wary of possible US sanctions. The 5G era may not have seen a flying start, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, but optical components makers expect order momentum from the 5G sector to start picking up in fourth-quarter 2020.Huawei slows down orders to handset ODMs: Huawei has slowed down the pace of its orders to handset ODMs in China, as the impact of the latest US trade ban against the Chinese brand intensifies, according to sources at China-based handset ODMs.China foundry startup facing uncertain future: Wuhan Hongxin Semiconductor Manufacturing (HSMC), a logic IC foundry founded in late 2017, has had its available production facilities left idle with its expansion project put on hold due to financial issues, according to sources familiar with the matter.Order momentum for 5G, datacenter optical components to pick up in 4Q20: Demand for optical components from the datacenter and 5G sectors has been slow in third-quarter 2020, but order momentum may start picking up in the fourth quarter, according to industry sources.

Brogent Technologies has created a 5G cloud computing-based dynamic simulation VR gaming system and set up such a gaming facility at Kaohsiung Software Technology Park in southern Taiwan.Brogent said the system was developed with help from a 5G edge computing R&D team under government-sponsored Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI).The system is a light-weight 3D dynamic simulation platform equipped with high-performance computing capability to enable VR online game players to experience real-time 3D dynamic simulation by virtue of 5G high transfer speeds and low latency, in a bid to bring value-added amusement and deeper immersive feeling in gaming, Brogent said.Brogent said it has a global market share of over 85% for flying theaters at present. The company has set up nearly 40 iRide flying theaters in theme parks and sight-seeing venues around the world and is setting up another 40 with a target cumulative number of 100 for 2023.A Brogent-developed 5G cloud-based dynamic simulation VR gaming facilityPhoto: Company

FlowView Tek, a startup business spun off from Taiwan's government-sponsored Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), has attracted investments from Taiwan's National Development Fund and Japan-based Sumitomo.Founded in 2017, FlowView specializes in liquid inspection solutions for applications ranging from semiconductors, energy storage to biomedical drugs. FlowView's liquid sample inspection technology is patented in Taiwan, Japan and the US.FlowView has introduced artificial intelligence (AI) into its services, using automated particle analysis technology to take liquid material detection to a whole new level, the company noted.In addition, FlowView has combined its technology and AI analysis software to provide Flow AOI services for chipmaking wet-process inspection tools. Flow AOI can be utilized for material feeding, production line and waste material inspections to enable production quality and efficiency.FlowView is eyeing a bigger presence in the semiconductor web-process inspection field, said the company, adding that it is stepping up business deployments in not only Asia but also Europe and the US.FlowView liquid nanoparticle monitoring systemPhoto: Company

The US trade sanctions against Huawei are reshaping the Chinese smartphone market. Digitimes Reseach expects weak 5G mobile AP shipments to China in fourth-quarter 2020, with Huawei standing to lose more than half of its share in China's smartphone market to its domestic competitors. But Taiwanese PCB makers still expect steady shipments to China's 5G handset sector through November 2020, dismissing rumors about Chinese clients cutting orders. And IC substrate makers are set to scale up their shipments next yea to support AiP production for 5G mmWave phones.US trade ban to impact China 5G smartphone AP shipments, says Digitimes Research: The US trade restrictions on Huawei are set to affect the overall shipments of 5G mobile APs to the Chinese market in fourth-quarter 2020, and to significant change the landscape of China's smartphone market in 2021, according to Digitimes Research.PCB makers to see steady shipments for 5G handsets till November: PCB makers will enjoy steady seasonal demand from the handset sector through November as handset makers are expected to launch more 5G devices, according to industry sources.Taiwan makers poised to scale up AiP substrate shipments in 2021: Taiwan-based IC substrate makers Unimicron, Nan Ya PCB and Kinsus Interconnect are expected to significantly scale up their AiP (antenna-in-package) substrate shipments in 2021, driven by demand for mmWave AiP modules rolled out by Qualcomm for 5G iPhones and by MediaTek for Chinese vendors, according to industry sources.

The US trade restrictions on Huawei are set to affect the overall shipments of 5G mobile APs to the Chinese market in fourth-quarter 2020, and to significant change the landscape of China's smartphone market in 2021, according to Digitimes Research.Demand for smartphone APs by Chinese handset makers is poised to reduce significantly in the fourth quarter of 2020 affecting the market share of related AP suppliers.MediaTek is expected to see its share in China's smartphone AP market drop to 23% for the second half of 2020, while Qualcomm will manage to ramp up its share to 28% during the same period, Digitimes Research estimates.Thanks to the trade ban, Huawei smartphone market share in China is expected to lose almost 30pp to its domestic rivals Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi in 2021.Chinese chipmaker Unisoc Technologies could emerge as an alternative AP source for China's handset makers at the expense of Huawei's chipmaking arm, HiSilicon Technologies, which is also subject to the US trade ban. However, Unisoc is still lagging behind other vendors in terms of 5G technology, preventig it from becoming a major player in the mobile AP market in the short term.Although Oppo has established an R&D team to develop chips in house, the company's initial aim is to develop chips for AIoT applications instead of APs for smartphones.

Asustek Computer's AIoT Business Group showcased AI-based solutions for product quality inspection at Taipei International Industrial Automation 2020 during August 19-22, with the solutions characterized by dynamic/static inspection and use of fewer samples to train AI models.AOI (automated optical inspection) systems usually rely only on invariable logic judgment and frequently mistake defects for normal conditions or vice versa, said Tseng Li-fang, senior strategic product and partner development director at Asustek.Quality inspection and preventive maintenance are the two least smart operational processes amid manufacturing, but AI can be used to reach smart manufacturing with both automation and intelligence, Tseng indicated.Asustek's AI-based quality inspection solutions are based on responses from its 200-300 supply chain makers. Use of ears to inspect quality of cooling fans, for example, incurs high cost including training of inspectors for 3-6 months, and their services may be short, Tseng said.To address the issue, Asustek has developed an AI-based inspection model, letting AI learn how to judge quality based on sound waves of working cooling fans, Tsing noted. The AI-based model is trained using only three 30-second sound files and can reach 100% accuracy, Tseng indicated.In addition to sound wave, the technology can be applied to other physical properties such as electric current, voltage and vibration for quality inspection, and Asustek has used it in predictive and preventive maintenance of manufacturing equipment and key components, Tseng said.Asustek has also developed an AI vision-based solution for inspecting defects on surfaces. While AOI entails use of hundreds to thousands of images of sample defects in training to set up inspection basis, the Asustek solution needs only 50 of such images for modeling of inspection, Tseng noted.Beginning with pilot use by its supply chain makers, Asustek has extended application of AI-based quality inspection solutions among steel, machinery and retail industries. Asustek provides both standard and customized versions.Tseng Li-fang, senior strategic product and partner development director for Asustek Photo: Chloe Liao, Digitimes, August 2020