Several local and foreign leaders in the 3D printing industry are to be in Taiwan next month to share their insights on the latest developments in the fast-growing sector, forum organizers said on Friday.
The day-long Computex 3D Printing Forum, scheduled to take place on June 6 during the annual Computex exhibition in Taipei, is now open for registrations, said the Taiwan Computer Association (TCA, 台北市電腦公會), which is organizing the forum and the show.
Takeo Nakagawa, president and chief executive of Japan’s Fine Tech Corp; Georgia Institute of Technology professor Suman Das; China 3D Printing Technology Association president H.M. Wang (王華明); and Simon Shen (沈軾榮), chairman of XYZ Printing Inc (三緯), a unit of Taiwanese electronics conglomerate Kinpo Group (金仁寶集團), are scheduled to speak at the forum, the association said in a statement.
Rapidly improving 3D printing technology can be applied to a wide range of industries, including medicine and medical technology, automotive parts and components, aerospace and molding, the association said, adding that the technology has great business potential.
According to Wohlers Associates Inc, a technology consulting firm, the global 3D printing market is expected to grow to US$10.8 billion by 2021, from US$2.3 billion recorded last year, with a compound annual growth rate of 22 percent.
Computex Taipei is to take place at the Nangang Exhibition Hall, the Taipei International Convention Center and Taipei World Trade Center Exhibition Hall 1 and Hall 3 from June 3 to June 7.
The five-day computer show, the world’s second-largest, is to feature 1,700 exhibitors and is expected to draw more than 130,000 visitors, including 38,000 international buyers, the association said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts