COMPUTEX 2023 Pre-Show Forum Discusses Global Supply Chain Resilience and ESG Strategies of Taiwanese ICT Industry


 Publish Date :2023/05/12


As the co-organizer of Asia’s leading B2B ICT tradeshow – COMPUTEX, Taipei Computer Association (TCA) aims to demonstrate the resilience of Taiwan’s ICT industry as well as the real measures taken by the industries to achieve their ESG goals. To share industry news and updates direct from leaders of some of Taiwan’s most influential companies, TCA organized the COMPUTEX Pre-Show Forum Global Supply Chain Resilience and ESG Strategies of Taiwanese ICT Industry Symposium on May 4 2023 to an audience of domestic and international media as well as representatives from various international trade offices in Taiwan.

The forum was opened by Mr. Paul SL Peng, the Chairman of TCA as well as Chairman and CEO of AUO. The speakers joining the forum include: Dr. Chris Hung, Vice President and Director General of MIC, III; Mr. T.H. Tung, Pegatron Corporation Chairman; Mr. Sean Pien, General Manager of Microsoft Taiwan; Ms. Grace Liu, Corp Sustainability Officer of Acer ESG Office; Mr. TS Wu, ASUS Chief Sustainability Officer; Mr. Chaney Ho, Advantech Co-Founder and Director of Board; as well as Ms. Sakura Yang, Director of TCA who introduced what to expect from COMPUTEX 2023.

The video of the forum will be shared when available on the COMPUTEX CYBERWORLD Platform. COMPUTEX and InnoVEX 2023 will be held in Nangang Exhibition Center Halls 1 and 2 from May 30 to June 2. Information and media during COMPUTEX 2023 will also be uploaded to the CYBERWORLD platform. Visit the CYBERWORLD Platform here: https://show.computex.biz/online.aspx

Paul SL Peng: Major Socio-Political Changes Greatly Affect the Global ICT & Industrial Supply Chain

In his opening speech, Mr. Peng stated that the 3-year pandemic had caused major changes not only for the general public, but also for the industries. In addition, the war in Ukraine, as well as other geopolitical challenges have also created major changes in the industrial chain. The global ICT industry currently see many once-in-a-decade or even once-in-a-century events in deconstruction, reconstruction, long supply chain, short supply chain, and more. All of these events pose great challenges to the industries, especially in maintaining supply chain resilience or operations resilience.

Taiwan’s ICT industry has been a leader in developing supply chain resilience in the past. One of the goals of the forum is to also share the experiences of industry veterans to encourage people to pay more attention to Taiwan’s ICT industry and how they can continue to lead other industries in achieving their Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) goals. International buyers are invited to join COMPUTEX to network and connect with the ICT companies joining the event which will be held from May 30 to June 2 in Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center Halls 1 and 2.

Dr. Chris Hong: Diverse ICT Applications can Assist the Digital Transformation of Various Industries can Create New Business Opportunities

In his speech, Dr. Chris Hong stated that the global economic momentum is still at a low point with price inflation slowly falling and declining sales & shipment of ICT products compared to last year. However, the decline has been better compared to the previous year and network and server sales have shown moderate growth. There is a very good chance that the first half of this year will see among the worst economic performance while the second half of the year will see moderate recovery.

Dr. Hong further shared that economic changes as well as the US-China trade war are among the main factors that significantly affect the supply chain planning. ICT manufacturers have successfully launched multiple new production bases. For example, the network & communication industries continue to expand their production capacity in South East Asia, production of mobile devices including mobile phones have increased in South Asia, and notebook & server production has expanded in Mexico as well as South and Central America or Taiwan to ensure supply chain resilience. At the same time, many major international manufacturers continue to strengthen their connection and layout with Taiwan’s supply chain.

Dr. Hong said that Enhancing Supply Chain Resilience with Digital Tools and Designing Production Processes with Net Zero as a Prerequisite are among the main trends of supply chain digital transformation and net zero transformation. Especially during the pandemic, maintaining a sustainable and environmentally friendly supply chain have become important issues that major companies are concerned about and focused on; creating a multi-directional transformation at the same time.

Dr. Hong stated that if Taiwan’s digital transformation is limited only to the OEM side, the benefit will be severely limited. Many manufacturers have developed technologies through digital transformation and developed various emerging technologies including automotive electronics, EV, smart vehicles, Web3, and more. ICT applications will help everyone carry out their industrial improvement and digital transformation will create new business opportunities for businesses.

TH Tung: Various Factors Affect the Global ICT Industry

Pegatron Chairman, Mr. TH Tung stated in his speech that there are various factors affecting the global strategies of the ICT manufacturing industry; including economic, political, social, technological, environmental, and legal. For businesses aiming to expand their manufacturing capabilities overseas for rebalancing, they must consider additional factors including legal compliance and localization.

Mr. Tung shared that ICT manufacturers also have to pay attention to the economic and demographic factors when executing their global strategies. Factors such as labor costs, land costs, and labor availability need to be considered and there are times when the strategies need focus more on the local market and meet the requirements of localization.

For example, Pegatron had expanded their global production and service sites to other countries including Indonesia, Mexico, Vietnam, and other locations starting from 2018. By 2022, international sites have employed over 23,000 employees with rapid growth over the last 6 months and low turnover rate (only approximately 3%).

As the world population continues to grow, businesses are encouraged to plan their global strategies early to leverage the demographic growth for both market and labor. Many Taiwanese businesses now set their sights to India and Southeast Asia because their high population size and density will provide a viable domestic market and conducive demographic outlook.

Mr. Tung believes that global management strategies will have practical issues need to be addressed, including supply chain establishment and redeployment, talent acquisition and integration, as well as decentralized and regionalized collaborations. As businesses focus on different products, markets, demographics, etc. there will be no singular best practice and the global expansion strategies must be modified accordingly.

Sean Pien: Taiwan’s ICT Industrial & Talent Advantages Help Empower Digital Solutions

Mr. Sean Pien, General Manager of Microsoft Taiwan stated that he is optimistic about Taiwan’s ICT industry and Microsoft has spared no effort, investing in Taiwan in the past 6 years. In 2016, Microsoft established the first IoT innovation center in Taiwan then, AI R&D center in 2018, Microsoft Startup Accelerator in 2019, a cloud data center and IoT Center of Excellence in 2020, a migration of the Azure cloud hardware & infrastructure teams in 2021, and established Microsoft Cloud for Medical and Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability in 2022.

Mr. Pien believes that Taiwan’s advantages include talents, software & hardware integration capabilities, government support, and a comprehensive ICT ecosystem. Through various measures, Microsoft has accelerated their cooperation with Taiwanese industries to develop medical solutions using their Microsoft HoloLens 2 as well as digital empowerment and sustainable manufacturing solutions.

Sakura Yang: COMPUTEX Remains the Leading ICT Platform in Asia-Pacific

Ms. Sakura Yang, Director of TCA stated that COMPUTEX 2023 will be held in Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center Halls 1 and 2 from May 30 to June 2. In total, the event will be joined by 1000 exhibitors in 3000 booths. COMPUTEX 2023 will focus on 8 main topics to highlight the trends from the participating manufacturers and the industry; including: vehicle tech, metaverse, ESG, semiconductor, HPC, gaming, AI & smart applications, and 5G.

COMPUTEX 2023 will be joined by leading AI and automotive electronics manufacturers in both the showground and the forums. New topics such as metaverse will further enable live immersive experiences and will feature new event practices to promote green & sustainable goals through on-site management and ESG labelling.

To promote more sustainable practices, exhibitors that comply with international green specifications will be provided with the ESG GO logo on their booths, in the organizer newsletter, and exhibition floor maps. The COMPUTEX CYBERWORLD platform will also organize a dedicated Green Sustainable Pavilion to showcase green products, sustainability projects & success stories and more. The pavilion aims to promote Taiwan's capability in the sustainability supply chain to international buyers.

As the official award of COMPUTEX, the Best Choice Award have added the new Sustainable Tech Special Award. In addition, the Best Choice Award pavilion in COMPUTEX 2023 will also use plant-based and recyclable materials to build the booths and displays.

The startup focused event of COMPUTEX, InnoVEX will be joined by approximately 400 startups from 22 countries; joined by 9 international pavilions and organizations, as well as fully supported by 7 government agencies. The total value of the InnoVEX Pitch Contest is worth USD 120,000 and the InnoVEX forum this year will hold close to 40 international forums discussing automotive electronics, metaverse, ESG, and more to further promote the cooperation between startups and VCs, CVCs, as well as the ICT industry.

Chaney Ho: Taiwan’s ICT Industry Has Built a Robust & Decentralized Global Supply Chain

Mr. Chaney Ho, Advantech Co-Founder and Director of Board stated in the panel discussion titled Global Plans and Trends of Taiwan’s ICT Industries that semiconductors are the core of the computer industry, as well as one of the cores of Taiwan’s ICT industry. One of the Taiwan’s main computer products include industrial computers (IPC) which currently has 2 main applications: in industrial settings and military uses, while the Industrial-Military joint application is slightly less commonly discussed.

Taiwan’s IPCs today are in use in various international military institutions in Israel, the UK, and US; proving that Taiwan’s computer industry has a wide reach and very trustworthy. This also shows that a global supply chain strategy is vital for the IPC industry. Advantech currently has branches in 28 countries and sales teams in 100 cities. Advantech has been engaged in short-chain supply chain for a long time and become an example of Taiwan’s computer industrial resilience and how the industry is capable of supplying reliable products globally.

TH Tung: The Global Electronics Industry Has Been Dominated by the Customer Market

In the panel discussion, Mr. Tung shared that the manufacturing and high-tech service industries have changed their global strategies as low labor cost is no longer the main priority. Some companies now choose to expand or move to the US, Mexico, Europe, or South East Asia as the market is one of the main factors that affect the manufacturing industry, especially for the electronics industry. To meet the needs of large customers, manufacturers and suppliers might need to consider moving closer to the customers to reduce transportation costs, import & customs fees, and to ensure immediately-available supplies.

Mr. Tung also shared that he had previously provided policy advice on the globalization strategies of Taiwanese manufacturers. SMEs have had difficulties in their global expansion unlike large corporations that most likely have enough capital and capacity to solve various concerns. His recommendation is that the government cooperates with businesses through government’s international trade agencies, development funds, etc. to enable and provide support systems especially for SMEs during the early transition periods. Specific assistances include providing medical and education services or even directly renting T2 or T3 high speed networks.

Grace Liu: Acer is Working with Supply Chain Partners to Expand Acer’s Social & Environmental Impact

Ms. Grace Liu, the Acer ESG Office Corp Sustainability Officer stated that as a global brand, Acer has long been aware of the need for corporate social & environmental responsibility and established their CSR Office in 2008. The Acer CSR Office was later renamed to the ESG Office in 2021.

Acer collaborated with their employees and supply chain partners in 2021 and launched the Earthion platform to expand Acer’s social and environmental impact through improved product and packaging designs, using more sustainable energy sources in the production & supply chain and transportation, as well as by building a more resilient and robust supply chain. The name Earthion was created as a way to represent their mission in addressing environmental challenges through innovative and comprehensive solutions.

TS Wu: ASUS Transformation is Led by ESG Requirements

In the panel discussion, Mr. TS Wu, ASUS Chief Sustainability Officer stated that the concept of ESG is not new and the term was first used in the Who Cares Wins report published by United Nations in 2005. The report stated that businesses that take governance and environmental factors into management for a long time will be able to outperform their competitors.

ASUS believes that sustainability is not a matter of competition so from 2019, ASUS adopted a more pragmatic business strategy that can be evaluated through data, managed with technology, and combined with their core competencies. This newly adopted business strategy must focus on 4 long term aspects: climate change, circular economy, responsible manufacturing, and value creation.

ASUS has adopted a data-driven approach to net-zero management decision making. They have committed to reducing their supply chain emissions by 25% by 2025 through improved R&D and energy efficiency. By 2030, ASUS aims to utilize 100% renewable energy in their Taiwanese bases. By 2035, ASUS aims to fully use renewable energy in all of their global operations.

Mr. Wu further stated that ASUS launched the world’s first carbon neutral laptop in this year’s CES. As the Taiwanese government aim to setup a carbon exchange by mid-2023, ASUS will also announce their solutions for integrating carbon rights trading in COMPUTEX 2023 which will take place from May 30 to June 2.

About COMPUTEX TAIPEI

COMPUTEX TAIPEI (or COMPUTEX) started in 1981 by the then-chairman of Taipei Computer Association (TCA), Mr. Stan Shih. In 1985, TCA invited Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) to be a co-organizer of the event. As Asia’s leading B2B ICT tradeshow, COMPUTEX showcases innovations from global leaders of the ICT industry and is now one of the most important events for new product launch events.

Since 2016, TCA expanded COMPUTEX to include InnoVEX, a startup focused event to run concurrently with COMPUTEX to connect startups with leading ICT companies from around the world. InnoVEX is where startups can match with global VCs, CVCs, manufacturing partners, buyers, and media in one hybrid platform.

COMPUTEX 2023 will focus on metaverse, vehicle tech, gaming & entertainment, HPC and ChatGPT, 5G, AIoT, ESG, and semiconductors. For more details, please visit the official COMPUTEX website at www.computex.biz/

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