Innovation Development | Innovation and Value Creation | ASUS ESG website, ASUS ESG goal

Innovation Development

Innovation Development

Performance

6711

As of the end of 2023, we have obtained 6,711 patents worldwide.

Digital Transformation Model Award

Shulin Smart Factory awarded the Digital Transformation Model Award.

Best Taiwan Global Brands

2023 is the tenth year that ASUS has been named as Best Taiwan Global Brands.

ASUS design thinking is the driving force behind innovation. ASUS has leveraged investments, M&A, intensive industrial-academic cooperations, and strategic alliances on the foundations of its core businesses to actively expand into new businesses and create competitive advantages for the sustainability of the Company. To support the ASUS Sustainability Strategy, we use the core competitiveness to promote sustainable digital transformation, open innovation and process innovation, and adopt a comprehensive impact assessment framework to disclose corporate value creation which is shared and built with our stakeholders.

Design Thinking

Design thinking is an important concept and framework for ASUS's creation of innovative products and services. Design thinking includes three aspects: desirability, feasibility, and viability.

ASUS' design thinking strategy focuses on people-centered and consumer experience as the starting point. The sequence of design thinking begins with people's desirability, and then evaluates technological feasibility and commercial survivability. The design thinking considered by ASUS is to provide customers with a meaningful and feasible user happiness experience by understanding the needs of users with the intermediate set of three aspects.

Innovation Management

Innovation is the most important core foundation for ASUS to evolve to a more competitive and sustainable future. ASUS is committed to creating solid and sophisticated technologies without compromising quality and excellence. With a design thinking, we can transform users’ desires and experiences into our first step of innovation to build a truly user-friendly and smart life. The management framework for our strategic innovation is built on the three cornerstones of “industry-academic cooperation", "innovation promotion", and "strategic investment".

Startup Promotion

Initiate cooperation with external innovation institutions, build innovative ecological partners, and actively co-create with industrial startups, in order to quickly respond to customer needs and market changes, and bring different creative inspiration and business development opportunities to the company.

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Industrial-Academic Cooperations

The cooperation between industry, government and academia is aming to conclude a long-term formal relationship. The Innovation and Development Office is actively expanding its tentacles at home and abroad, creating connections, and seeking various possibilities for technology introduction, service diffusion, and brand innovation.

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Strategic Investments

In order to strengthen the core business competitive advantage for all business units and fill the development gap, we make strategic investments in external resources to develop new businesses or expand into emerging markets, so that the overall revenue of the Group will grow by keeping up to date with industrial development trends for more development opportunities. To do this, the Innovation Development Office developed a strategic investment proposal process in five stages: demand confirmation, investment proposal, investment review, investment execution, and post investment management. The Office is working with the Investment Department and the Accounting Department to strive for maximum benefits.

In 2023, the Innovation Development Office learned from thousand cases and selected 189 startups in four categories: artificial intelligence, future development, innovative technology and sustainability for further analysis and review. As of the end of 2023, we have selected 12 proposals for subsequent development.

AI Products and Services

In addition to continuous innovation and growth in existing personal computers (PC) and gaming businesses, the active transformation targets of ASUS also include the accelerated development of the AIoT and 5G ecosystems and the development of the third engine of growth in smart healthcare and smart manufacturing industries. In 2022, ASUS established the "ASUS - AI and Cloud campus" and invest in Taiwan Web Service Corporation (TWS) to use cloud services to develop the AIHPC high-performance computing and big data platform necessary for the development of artificial intelligence. We continue to work with external partners in AI applications in manufacturing, medical services, finance, and smart city.

Smart Manufacturing

ASUS continues to play a pivotal role in advancing industry factories from automation to digitization to intelligence. In 2022, ASUS' Smart Factory in Shulin officially commenced operations, and in 2023, ASUS took a significant step towards data governance by further incorporating a data middleware and intelligent scheduling system. Through AI engines and models deployed within the platform and system, real-time data is analyzed for trends. This initiative represents a concrete example of the practical implementation of generative AI in real-world scenarios.

  • Data Middleware: Enables transparency in product production data, achieving traceability and accelerating digital transformation.
  • Intelligent Production Scheduling System: Utilizes intelligent AI engines to optimize production scheduling by considering key factors such as capacity, materials, molds/fixtures, production line characteristics, and workforce.
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Smart Healthcare

ASUS actively develops smart healthcare applications and strengthens the innovation in the services in healthcare and cloud. We seek to create the next-generation medical information platform to support the digital transformation of healthcare and meet international standards.

  • Cooperated with the Swiss Roche Group (Roche) to develop the big data medical research platform - Lumos Real-World Data Platform.
  • The all-new generation of ASUS handheld wireless ultrasound LU800 boasts a significant improvement in image quality to 128 channels.By leveraging technology, it aims to reduce healthcare costs, enhance medical efficiency, and alleviate the challenges posed by limited healthcare resources.
  • ASUS AI Endoscopy Lesion Detection System (EndoAim) can perform real time polyp detection through endoscopic imaging, with sensitivity of 97% and specificity of 98%, significantly reducing the omission rate. EndoAim was selected as a project supported by the Ministry of Health and Welfare in 2021.
  • ASUS ASUS Smart Health WatchVivoWatch was certified by the Ministry of Health and Welfare by TFDA of the Ministry of Health and Welfare, becoming Taiwan’s first self-developed health wearable with a blood pressure application software.

Smart Retail

In response to the development trend of Online Merge Offline (OMO) for smart retail, ASUS Smart Retail focuses on developing two main axes: lightweight AI services for retail scenarios and SaaS services for retail membership data platforms. Through a combination of hardware, OMO microservices, and cloud data platforms, ASUS Smart Retail provides various solutions.

In 2023, it delivered a Cloud POS software-hardware solution for the retail and foodservice industries. This solution includes OMO microservices such as membership management, loyalty points management, ticketing management, ordering systems, and a data middleware for cloud data integration and analysis. This comprehensive retail hardware and software service offers an all-in-one solution.
 

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Management of Intellectual Property Rights

The Company is committed to innovation and R&D. Intellectual property rights is one of the key results for R&D and we have steadily increased the number of patent applications filed worldwide every year. As of the end of 2023, we have obtained 6,711 worldwide. In 2023, ASUS obtained 738 patents worldwide, which was a 9% increase from 2022. They included 416 patents in Asia, and 322 patents in Europe and in the United States.

ASUS also made substantial investments in the development of high-end communications market, and has filed 368 patents in the communications field as of the end of 2023. ASUS regularly announces standard essential patents (SEPs) in line with the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). From 2018 to the end of 2023, we have accumulated the announcement of 322 patent families (excluding extensions). The number of patents for overall communication standards is steadily increasing.

Having been part of the 3GPP Mobile Communication Standards organization since 2000, we are committed to developing 3G/4G/5G Standard Essential Patents (SEP). We have built a solid 3GPP SEP patent portfolio and achieved fruitful results in 3GPP SEP licensing. In April 2022, we founded the ASUS Technology Licensing Inc. (ATL) to dedicate to the most forward-looking research on mobile communication technologies.