Recently, Liu Yangwei, chairman of Foxconn Technology Group, delivered a keynote speech at the Taipei International Computer Show (Computex), he pointed out that the strong demand for computing power in the fields of smart manufacturing, electric vehicles and smart cities will continue to rise, and the combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics technology is becoming the core driving force of enterprise transformation.
1. AI Robots: From "Execution Tools" to "Smart Producers"
Foxconn is developing a new generation of AI robots that break through the functional limitations of traditional robotic arms. Liu Yangwei emphasized that by using Nvidia's Omniverse platform, robots can form "smart brains" with the help of millions of simulation trainings, so that they can quickly adapt to tasks in the real production environment, and promote deep changes in the manufacturing and supply chain.
These robots can not only perform repetitive tasks, but also gather the experience of production experts through generative AI, such as defect detection and equipment adjustment, and 80% of routine tasks are now completed by AI agents, freeing up manpower to invest in high-value innovation work. Liu Yangwei further explained that the learning and coordination capabilities of AI agents can shorten the production cycle by more than 10%, and at the same time generate computing unit "tokens", laying the foundation for the technology replication of "Agentic AI" across factories.
2. Diversified layout: from smart factories to urban ecology
In addition to manufacturing innovation, Foxconn's technology footprint extends to the fields of smart electric vehicles (EVs) and smart cities. In the field of electric vehicles, the electric buses developed by it have been put into operation in Kaohsiung City, and on-board sensors can collect road condition data in real time, providing real-time data support for traffic optimization, energy management and other applications in smart cities.
Liu Yangwei revealed that Foxconn has deeply integrated NVIDIA technology in the three major sectors of intelligent manufacturing, electric vehicles and smart cities: building an AI factory through the Omniverse digital twin platform to achieve millions of training cycles in the virtual environment to ensure that the robot can operate efficiently when deployed; The GB200 server, developed in cooperation with NVIDIA, integrates 1.2 million components in a single rack, weighs nearly 2 tons, and has a unit price of up to $2 million to $3 million, reflecting the technical depth of both parties in the field of high-end computing equipment.
Figure: Foxconn: The demand for intelligent computing is here to stay
3. Industrial challenges and the future of technological collaboration
Liu's speech also addressed the structural problems of the current labor market, where the exclusion of low-wage jobs by young workers has forced companies to reshape their production models through technological innovation. AI and robotics are not only tools to improve efficiency, but also the key to solving the manpower gap and promoting industrial upgrading.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang later took the stage to share that the products developed in collaboration with Taiwan's supply chain reflect the "pinnacle of precision engineering", such as the complexity of the GB200 server, which is behind the close collaboration between Taiwanese and American companies in the fields of semiconductors, precision mechanics and software development. This cooperation model not only consolidates Taiwan's position as a hub in the global technology supply chain, but also provides a "technology collaboration sample" for the transformation of the global manufacturing industry.
4. Prospects: Computing power-driven intelligence of all things
With the proliferation of generative AI and edge computing technologies, the demand for computing power is extending from data centers to factories, in-vehicle systems, and even urban infrastructure. Foxconn's layout shows that the future of intelligent manufacturing is no longer a single link of automation, but through the integration of AI, robotics and digital twin technology, to build a "learning, collaborative, and evolveable" intelligent ecosystem. From production lines to city streets, computing power, as the core productivity, will drive the Internet of Everything to move towards the intelligence of all things, and cross-domain and cross-enterprise technical collaboration will become the core engine of this transformation.
The cooperation between Foxconn and NVIDIA is not only a technological breakthrough for the two companies, but also a new era in which the global technology industry is shifting from "hardware-driven" to "computing power and intelligence-driven". In this process, the boundaries between manufacturing, transportation, and urban management will become increasingly blurred, and eventually converge into an intelligent world based on data and AI.
