Computex Taipei, which was set up by TAITRA(Taiwan External Trade Development Council) and TCA(Taipei Computer Association), had a time of great change welcoming its 36th anniversary in 2016 after its first opening in 1981.

Beginning this year, Computex that was originally organized around the ecosystem of PC is reorganized with themes of IoT, startup, business solution and gaming according to the change of industry structure.

This change might be resulted from the change of structure and trend of IT industry, which accounts for 40% of total exports of Taiwan. The rise of mobile generation largely influenced Computex and Taiwan, which was like the center of PC industry of the world, and the change of Computex is clearly showing the change of IT industry of Taiwan. In addition, as the direction of bringing out the strengths, the future Taiwan IT industry and Computex event are changing by focusing on the most competitive themes, IoT and solution.

On June 2, in Taipei, Taiwan where Computex Taipei was being held, Acrofan reporter met Walter Yeh, a vice-president of TAITRA, to hear about the general direction of Computex and IT industry of Taiwan. He emphasized that Taiwan has good conditions for startup and supports from various channels are prepared. Also, he made it clear that the direction of the future Computex event would be focused on B2B, which concentrates on the industry such as IoT.


The most distinguishing feature of the event is the three theme exhibitions that are newly prepared. Among them, ‘InnoVEX,’ focusing on startup industries, is on the position that is highlighted by a keynote and a variety of events. In this year, 217 industries from 22 countries participated InnoVEX, and the areas that were emphasized in Computex 2016, such as IoT, solution, mobile service, big data, cloud related, VR and AR, are introduced as the foremost considerations.

Supports for startup from Taiwan are provided from various channels. $80 million startup fund is prepared at Taiwan government level, and there are also supports for private venture capitalists and attraction of regional venture capitals. Moreover, it is introduced that a project for making the existence like Silicon Valley of Asia is progressed in Taoyuan. As the atmosphere of Taiwan is that small- to medium-sized businesses take a large part of the general state economy, it is friendly to startup.

Geographical conditions of Taiwan have advantageous characteristics to startup. The first thing is that it is possible to easily commercialize any idea as it has the ecosystem of general supply chain for implementing ideas. At the same time, in aspect of human resources, they can use both English and Chinese with technical proficiency, so it is advantageous for advancement to any market and communication. Although Taiwan has these conditions, systems such as IP protection are well prepared, and, in aspect of cost, it is an important part that living costs are cheaper than those of competitive regions.

Of course, it is natural that a policy related to startup promotion of this country level prioritizes the young in Taiwan and startup. However, it is introduced that Taiwan is welcoming foreign startups and it supports various administrative matters or work visa for foreign startups’ approach to Taiwan. Walter Yeh introduced Korea’s ‘KONOLabs’ as a representative case, and KONOLabs participated in this Computex as a separate booth.


Another ‘theme area,’ ‘SmarTEX’ might not be a completely new thing. Walter Yeh expressed it as ‘Re-Postioning,’ and he said that organizing it as ‘theme area’ is an intention to make the change of industry structure and theme of this event clear. According to the composition of theme area, it achieved successive results that a number of related companies newly participated Computex and about 50% of companies in SmarTEX and IoT related are new companies.

In the Computex, SmarTEX is considered one of the main exhibitions. Generally, the number of companies that show items related to traditional PC is decreased, but they rather concentrate on IoT, etc. For example, ADVANTECH, which is famous for industry PC, changed its position to a company that provides IoT solutions. Therefore, the overview of the industry is changing. Walter Yeh suggested, “Now, the content of Computex is changed, and a demand of PC must turn away its eyes to CeBIT.”

However, if there is an exception in demand of consumer devices such as traditional PC, it will be ‘gaming’ part specialized in PC area, which still has strengths. Moreover, Taiwan especially has a large influence in the area related to PC gaming. In this part, traditional PC industries, ASUS and ACER, are making good competitive products. They attracted attention in that they are costly and they have high added value for games with high specification.

Among new special exhibitions, ‘iStyle’ that presents Apple MFI standard products has uniqueness that consumer characteristic and B2B characteristic coexist, and it was presented in small scale with five booths. However, Walter Yeh emphasized that new approach of this small booth contains a meaning that cannot be looked down, and Taiwan is at the position of significant supplier in the ecosystem of Apple product. Furthermore, the companies that participated this event have big value and important meanings in many ways.


In a characteristic based on PC ecosystem that can give familiarity to general consumers in some degree, Computex directly reflects the change of Taiwan IT industry as it is rapidly shifting to B2B forms such as IoT and solutions. Walter Yeh stated that the change to IoT and business solution, which is combined with hardware and software, is a clear flow, and hence, Computex will be an IoT-specialized event through new partnership and ecosystem.

Of course, topicality and attractancy of the event itself toward the general public will be dropped when it concentrates on businesses of IoT and startup and the characteristic related to B2B gets bigger, but Walter Yeh made the future direction of Computex clear that it will be strengthened in aspect of consistent B2B based on this year’s theme. The exhibition’s ‘Public opening’ schedule reflected this policy, but its percentage became so small that the schedule for general visitors is only one day in the whole schedule.

Walter Yeh left a request about capacity change according to the generation to Taiwan’s PC related large companies, which were ‘fixture’ and ‘issue maker’ of Computex. Among PC companies, ‘Asus’ is the best practice of this change. Asus, which was traditionally PC-centered, is showing various accomplishments from mobile phone to not only robot but also home IoT. Hence, other companies are requested to respond to the change to IoT in the future.

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