Vietnam is a young country with more and more people ready to swarm into urban areas, and Hanoi will become an iconic place for promoting the country's overall smart city projects highlighting energy resources, water resources and transportation, Nguyen Duc Chung, chairman of the Hanoi People's Committee, said when opening the ASOCIO Smart City Forum 2018 on September 18 for a three-day run in the capital city.Acting on the instruction from the central government, Hanoi has set the goal of achieiving 100% clean water by 2020, and in line with the urbanization trend, Hanoi will serve as a role model for the implementation of smart city projects.At the opening session, David Wong Nan Fay, chairman of the Asian-Oceanian Computing Industry Organization (ASOCIO) that organizes the forum, said that the attendance of 500 representatives from more than 10 member states of the organization shows the great expectations for fast urbanization and smart city solutions among emerging countries in Asia.Yvonne Chiu, chairperson of the World Information Technology and Services Alliances (WITSA), also noted that with Bhutan joining as a new member, WITSA now has a total of 83 member states from around the world, with those in Asia particularly abounding in business opportunities. Chiu called for Hanoi to partner with Taiwan in the development of smart cities.Vietnam now has a population of nearly 100 million, with 60% of them being young people. This, coupled with an annual GDP expansion of over 6%, will turn Vietnam into a star of tomorrow in Asia. Statistics show that Vietnam has over 70 million handset users including 64 million smartphone holders, indicating that the country has developed good infrastructures for digital transformation.ASOCIO Smart City Forum 2018 takes place in HanoiASOCIO chairman David WongPhotos: Digitimes staff, September 2018

Facing the great waves of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, Vietnam is keen on promoting e-government projects, and the government there has selected five main cities, including Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Danang, as pilot sites for smart city development, covering clean energy, environmental protection and transportation, according to Truong Gia Binh, chairman of FPT Group, the largest information technology service company in the country.Binh told Digitimes in a recent exclusive interview that the information technology service market scale in Vietnam is estimated at US$16 billion a year, with an annual growth of 13% seen in 2017.FPT just marked its 30th anniversary on September 12. Binh said that he founded FPT from scratch 30 years ago, when Vietnam was just beginnig to introduce reform and open up. After returning to Vietnam following 11 years of studies in the Soviet Union, Binh decided to venture into the country's information service market, which at the time hardly seemed promising.But now, the FPT Group, dedicated to information services, 3C channel distribution services, and computer education and training services, has a total of 35,000 employees and annual revenues of US$2 billion. The group has extended its software contract services and call-center business to 33 countries, maintaining business ties with at least 100 out of the world's top-500 enterprises.Speaking about Vietnam's future development prospects, Binh pointed out Vietnam has 65% of its population aged under 35, with the average age of its people at only 27. In addition, Vietnamese students have very good mathematical skills, frequently winning prizes in international math contests, which has prompted FPT to engage in computer education as a major business.Furthermore, the FPT Group has over 600 franchised partners in Vietnam for 3C products distribution, and it has also set up a joint venture with Taiwan's Synnex Technology International to develop local 3C distribution business in Vietnam.But Binh still has a lot of concerns about whether to foray into production of consumer electronics devices including handsets.At the moment, Samsung Electronics undoubtedly is the top vendor in Vietnam's handset market, bolstered by its volume production capability there. Also, chances are also not high for Vietnam makers to outperform China handset brands in the market.Accordingly, Vietnam is inclined to produce network communication products associated with national security, and develop local information service business.Truong Gia Binh, chairman of Vietnam's FPT GroupPhoto: Digitimes staff, September 2018

Many tech startups are actively applying newly emerging technologies to carry out smart wealth management services amid the ever-expanding financial investment portfolios. Among them, Taiwan's Leadin Technology is dedicated to offering AI-driven wealth management solutions through its social trading platform named TradingValley.Company co-founder Jerry Peng said that TradingValley is cooperating with securities houses, investment trust firms and investment consulting firms in Taiwan to offer smart B2B wealth management services to financial institutions by leveraging algorithm-driven prediction technologiesIn the US, TradingValley is zeroing in on the massive B2C market, providing individual users with customized wealth management services associated with ETF (exchange traded funds) and listed shares, through the application of AI and quantitative models, Peng continued.Peng disclosed that his company is also applying for related operating licenses for its own wealth management app products initially targeting Chinese financial investors in the US market.Peng indicated that TravingValley hopes to provide retail investors with the optimal and customized investment portfolios and render them smart and convenient wealth management services at low costs.He disclosed that based on the ensemble learning concept, TradingValley can collect massive financial data and then use multiple machine learning algorithms to predict the performances of global stock exchange markets, so as to work out the best dynamic assets allocation effects and boost the gains from financial investment portfolios.He added that the firm's algorithm engines can offer precision market analysis, with the winning rate already reaching 70%.Leadin Technology co-founder Jerry PengPhoto: Mark Tsai, Digitimes, Spetember 2018

The IoT (Internet of Things) applications will see explosive development in 2019-2020 with total NB (narrow band)-IoT solutions to be fully incorporated into the smart city field, but no enterprises can fight single-handedly in the era, according to KC Liu, chairman of Advantech.Liu said that demand for IoT applications from customers, especially in China, has grown significantly since the beginning of 2018. This, coupled with full deployments by China's three telecom operators and web giants Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu as well as strong government policy support, has added drastic growth momentum to IoT applications in the country.Liu said Advantech is focusing on the development of SRP (solution ready packages) for IoT applications and on SI (system integration) seeking to expand the market through collaborating with cross-industry players.He disclosed that Advantech may cooperate first with China's Baidu in promoting IoT solutions, and may also collaborate with Alibaba in the future.As a provider of cross-industry platforms, Advantech has been actively carrying out labor divisions with telecom operators, large software firms and small and medium-sized enterprises to help traditional industries' transformations and upgrades.Faced with demand for professional and multiple applications from the sectors of smart city, smart healthcare, smart retail, smart transportation, smart logistics and smart energy, Advantech has developed WISE-PaaS platforms to serve customer needs, according to Liu.Liu said only a few firms operating well in the Internet+ era can successfully transition to the IoT era through business transformation.Advantech chairman KC LiuPhoto: Shihmin Fu, Digitimes, September 2018

Worldwide top-5 notebook brands saw their combined shipments increase 11% on month in August as they began releasing new products and preparing inventory for the second half of the year. However, because of the shortages for Intel's entry-level and some mainstream processors, their combined shipments went down 4% on year in August, the first on-year decline in the past five months, while the on-month growth was also weaker than that of August 2017.Hewlett-Packard's (HP) shipments increased over 20% on month in August, but slipped 6% on year. This was the second consecutive month of on-year drop for the company, according to Digitimes Research's figures.Lenovo only had an on-month shipment growth of less than 10% in August due to the ongoing trade tensions between China and the US plus weakening demand from China's notebook market. Dell's shipments dipped from a month ago in August as its Chromebook orders were almost completed.The top-3 ODMs witnessed an on-month increase of around 10% in combined shipments in August. Quanta Computer surpassed Compal Electronics and returned as the largest maker worldwide thanks to dramatic growths in its orders from US- and Taiwan-based clients, boosting its shipments by nearly 20% in the month.

While Industry 4.0 is changing people's current and future way of working, Intel is moving to fully deploy its technologies in every IoT node to make entire IoT system boast the best computing performance and facilitate wide applications of leading new technologies such as AI, smart Internet, and built-in information security mechanisms into IIoT (industrial IoT) applications, according to Xie Qingshan, Intel's China IoT marketing manager. Xie told Digitimes in a recent interview that Industry 4.0 or the fourth industrial revolution mainly refers to digital transformation of manufacturing, commercial and social fields, integrating physical, digital and biological worlds. In the process, bolstered by the popularity of high performance computing chips, IIoT can monitor the whole production process, from any equipment on production lines to every production material in warehouses.Xie continued that automated robots, AI, cloud computing, sensors and data analysis can be adopted to help smart manufacturing plants connect all the production and logistics processes in an organic way to achieve smart, efficient and sustainable manufacturing operations.Nevertheless, how to apply the new technologies to existing systems requires total solutions based on top-layer designs, instead of only installing some new machines or upgrading production lines, Xie said, stressing that new-generation manufacturers must, in particular, think about how to build higher-efficiency IIoT communication infrastructures to facilitate real-time collection, transmission, analysis and application of diverse data.Manufacturers are now aware that data will play a dominant role in the decision-making process, and all smart-plant employees have to think logically like a data scientist. Also, company managers should consider how to turn data into a core management element, instead of just handing collected data over to data scientists and making decisions based on their research conclusions, Xie indicated.Intel IIoT product division will focus on developing high-performance edge computing hardware products, highly-integrated industrial software integration platforms, and machine vision and AI applications development platforms, suitable industrial uses, Xie concluded.

Bluetooth low-energy indoor positioning solution developer Starwing Technology has reached a high technological accuracy level of 10-30cm in positioning error, much lower than a general level of 3-5m, according to the company.Starwing develops indoor positioning technology based on analysis and prediction using artificial neural network and AI (artificial intelligence) deep learning. The technology is used in indoor positioning, monitoring, safety early warning, tracking and hot spot analysis at railway/bus stations, airports, department stores, museums, factories, warehousing/logistics facilities, and medical care scenarios, Starwing indicated.At highly automated factories, accurate positioning is essential to feeding components/materials, assembling components and carrying finished products, Starwing said.For medical care, positioning tags with biometric monitoring functions can help track patients and understand their physiological conditions, Starwing noted.Indoor positioning technology can be used in jails to monitor inmates, Starwing indicated.Starwing said it has been in talks with many hospitals in Taiwan about cooperation, and will cooperate with partners in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, for setting up an IoT booth at World Expo 2020 to take place in Dubai during October 20, 2020-April 10, 2021.Starwing's indoor positioning device (left) Photo: Mark Tsai, Digitimes, September 2018

Along with the constant development of blockchain technologies and applications, the era of chain groups and token economy has arrived, with 2018 being the starting year for a common community integrating public chains, industry shared chains and token economy, Yuan Dao, chairman of China's Zhongguancun Blockchain Industry Alliance, has said at Global Blockchain Smart Application Forum held recently in Taipei.Yuan said the token concept allows the separation of token from coin, and it is hoped that through fewer than 100 lines of codes, a DApp (decentralized application) development and token certificate issuance can be completed. This way, the token certificate issuing efficiency can be boosted to materialize the "one-click certification" concept.Meanwhile, Yuan continued, multi-end, multi-dimension and multi-type practices can be adopted to let everybody join the blockchain space. And the final stage rests with issuing token certificates to all the people, so as to facilitate the incorporation of blockchain technologies into all sectors of society and create safe information circulation.Yuan elaborated further that digital tokens are a kind of human shared symbol based on the cryptography infrastructure, and can be issued and circulated around the world. In this regard, collaboration between industrial upstream and downstream players must be enhanced to push for the circulation of digital tokens. Enterprises can also build their global brands to cement patronage from network users through their own globally-circulated brand tokens.Inheriting Internet groundworkYuan commented that blockchain will inherit Internet groundwork to combine all the forces of the global Internet world and then apply the forces into diverse public infrastructures.The current blockchain development entails two major cores: digital ID and online payment. And comprehensive blockchain applications must start with a vertical promotion of token certificates before they are incorporated into diverse physical industries to facilitate common development by multiple sectors. In the future, trust-driven chain groups will join forces with belief-driven social groups to further spur blockchain development, according to Yuan.Yuan stressed that token economy will see brand-new, cross-chain and cross-domain scenarios, and open-source coding is needed to make blockchain become public infrastructure. He continued that consensus, trust and application will be core concepts of blockchain to create more of its value.Yuan indicated that the combination of digital tokens and physical economy will create an actual "blue ocean" of blockchain applications, adding that personal big data will become one of the core developments in the future as personal privacy and information will all become data property in the blockchain world.Yuan Dao, chairman of Zhonghuancun Blockchain Industry AlliancePhoto: Mark Tsai, Digitimes, September 2018

Successful combination of Taiwan's IT and biomedical advantages can help shape new industry ecosystems and create innovative AI-based business models at a time when the global healthcare industry records a higher ratio for investment in AI applications, according to experts at a recent forum held in Taipei.At the forum, jointly hosted by PwC Taiwan and Taipei Medical University, a representative from the government Board of Science and Technology said that the future of the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries will highlight the combination of digital medicine, regenerative medicine and precision medicine technologies. The government hopes to promote the application of big data to the R&D of pharmaceuticals and the combination of biotech and pharmaceutical technologies and economy to explore new business models.PwC Taiwan vice president HC Tseng said that Taiwan is a world leader in the ICT sector and well-known for its medical services. She stressed that the country's health insurance data bank and biobank are golden data minerals for clinical information, providing the best opportunity for Taiwan to develop digital medicine and AI applications.On the same occasion, Brian Williams, PwC's global healthcare strategy director, cited the firm's 2017 Digital IQ Survey as indicating that 74% of the players in the global medical and healthcare sectors have plans to invest in AI applications in the next three years, much higher than the corresponding ratios for high tech, manufacturing and finance industries, indicating that AI will see wider and deeper applications to the healthcare and medical sectors.HC Wu, president of Asustek Cloud and Austek Healthcare, opined that in the future, data can serve as a medium for connecting patients, hospitals, makers of medical supplies, pharmaceutical makers, and contract research organizations into an industry ecosystem to create innovative business models.Frank Kung, co-founder of US-based Vivo Capital, commented that AI is really a very good tool but clear-cut business models must be worked out before the technology can be well applied to the biomedical sector. He stressed that only first-class biomedical teams can manage to collaborate with world-class firms and source sufficient funds to support medical technology innovations.

Taiwan has formulated relatively friendlier regulations governing virtual currency exchanges, which is expected to help the country's trading of digital tokens expand significantly, according to David Pan, president of ACE Exchange, a digital asset trading platform.Speaking at Global Blockchain Smart Application Forum held recently in Taipei, Pan said that the Taiwan government has regarded digital currencies as a kind of commercial merchandise and allowed initial coin offering (ICO) launches. In addition, the government has been active in pushing for self-regulated practices by operators of digital token trading houses while also moving to build related supervision mechanisms.Pan said all these efforts are expected to significantly drive up Taiwan's daily digital currency exchange turnover, now averaging only around NT$100 million (US$3.25 million). The figure lags far behind a corresponding equivalent of NT$12.5 billion in South Korea, although Taiwan's average daily stock exchange trading value of around NT$140 billion is similar to South Korea's.Pan cited statistics as indicating that a total of around 1,500 digital currencies have been issued around the world so far, and their total market values amounted to US$441.3 billion as of the end of March 2018. Of the currencies, Bitcoin commanded the highest portion, at around 40% or US$176.1 billion, of the market values with an issuance volume of 16.89 million units, compared with 19% and US$84 billion for Ether, 8% and US$35.4 billion for Ripple, and 2% for Litecoin.At the moment, 44% of digital coin trading is denominated in Japanese yen and 35% in the US dollar, compared to the previous dominance of Chinese yuan as a main currency traded for virtual tokens.