In 2013, Jack Ma said that Taiwan's technology sector was hopeless. This year's Computex showed what a difference 11 years can make.
The Alibaba Group CEO looked at the moribund state of Taiwan's tech sector and attributed the clear lack of vitality to companies being led by gray-haired men in their 70's and 80's, who also took charge of driving innovation. How could Taiwan compete with leading-edge companies when decisions were being made by geriatrics? （“我說台灣沒希望了，假如七八十歲的人還在創新”）
To be honest, he had a point. At the time, the technology wave on the other side of the straits was beginning to pick up serious speed. In that year, Tencent's Weixin/WeChat launched its payments/red envelope functionality, that basically changed the whole country. Alibaba's #ecommerce platforms Taobao Marketplace and Tmall were dominating the country's retail industry and attracting the brightest graduates and minds. Its flagship event, Singes Day (11.11), which had sales of RMB3.4 billion in 2011, had grown more than 10X to RMB 35 billion in 2013.
And at the same time, Taiwan just seemed to have stopped...... Science parks were emptying out, as firms moved their focus to China. Software and startups seemed non-existent. All that was left were the same industrial component companies and computer firms, such as Acer and ASUS. The brightest star, HTC, had already faded.
Computex had already become an average local show. Very few innovations were released at the event. Maybe members of the public might be able to pick up a cheap deal on electronics, but people had stopped caring. The big shows that the global tech media and industry leaders cared about were now in China, like CES Asia in Shanghai. Moreover, this trend seemed irreversible.
This year's Computex signaled a significant shift. As the Chinese saying goes, "風水輪流轉", the direction of the feng shui has turned.
At the event, Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), CEO of Nvidia, which recently surpassed Apple to become the world's second most valuable company, stated during his keynote speech on Sunday (June 2) that everything his company does begins in Taiwan before being introduced to the world.
Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, etc, all sent their top executives to speak at COMPUTEX TAIPEI, and movers from all across the world came to Taipei to be at the event. I have been going to Computex since 2013, and this is by far the biggest, busiest, and most impressive that it has ever been.
What really impressed me most was the InnoVEX expo, the start-up event that runs concurrently with Computex.
I remember visiting InnoVEX years ago, and it was drab, especially compared to events like TechCrunch Disrupt and MWC held in China. InnoVEX had very few sexy startups, reflecting how stagnant the startup scene was in Taiwan.
In 2024, Taiwan now has a growing batch of software a（nd hardware) startups that are not only innovating, but also setting their sights on expanding overseas and changing the world. The feng shui really has turned