COMPUTEX kicks off tomorrow!

 Tomorrow, the world's second largest computer and technology fair (Asia's largest, and behind Germany's CeBIT) will comence, which is expected to attract 120,000 visitors, including more than 30,000 international buyers. According to the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA), this year’s event is 8% larger in scope than last year's. It is also likely to generate business opportunities worth 25 billion US dollars.


  COMPUTEX is co-organized by government-funded Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) and private sector Taipei Computer Association (TCA). The first expo, then called Taipei Computer Show, was held in 1981 and started out as a place where small and medium sized businesses in Taiwan's nascent computer industry could display their products.

The showfloor

  Until Stan Shih, former head of the TCA, proposed to changed the name to "COMPUTEX Taipei" in the 4th expo. As Taiwan's information technology industry took off in the early 1990s, and the Foreign Trade Council Display Hall in Taipei Songshan Airport was put back into use in the 8th, 9th expo, COMPUTEX has since rapidly expanded and become an important showcase for the IT industry. Now it has become the second largest computer expo in the world (after CeBIT) and the largest in Asia, with participation from major manufacturers such as Intel, AMD, ATI, NVIDIA, and others, as well as Taiwanese brand names such as Acer and ASUS.


 TAITRA said 1,800 manufacturers from Taiwan and abroad will  participate in the five-day event. These include Acer, Asus, Honhai, Hitachi, Intel and Microsoft, and manufacturers from Mainland China.

  TAITRA said this year’s Computex features tablet computers, e-books, smart phones, 3D technology, cloud computing services, and other innovative products. TAITRA’s executive vice president Walter Yeh talked about the show.


 “We have local tablets and also international tablets. [They are] all together here. You will see [them] at our Computex show," said Yeh.