Smart cities in India present multiple opportunities for Taiwan

TAITRA, in association with Taiwan Excellence, organised a webinar "Comtech India-Online New Product Launch & Business Matchmaking."

Walter Yeh, President and CEO, TAITRA, talked about India-Taiwan trade relations and new business opportunities in the areas of smart cities and ICT space. There was major focus on Taiwan’s ICT capabilities in tracking and managing Covid-19, and how India can adopt similar approach.

India a hot destination

He said: "India has become a hot investment destination with huge growth potential. The ICT market in India is projected to grow to $350 billion by 2025. TAITRA launched a smart city show in Mumbai three years ago. We have now repositioned and rebranded the show as Comtech India & Asia Smart City Show. The show will focus on four things, including network communications and IoT, smart city solutions, new technologies from the start-ups, and X-Box gaming equipment."

He added that TAITRA also holds the Taiwan Excellence Awards. The products devote innovation, R&D and quality. The Taiwan enterprises are performing strongly, even with the Covid-19 pandemic. There are six Taiwan Excellence award winners that are outstanding. They are interested in the Indian and the Asian markets. These companies are Advantech, Moxa, Merit Lilin, Avision, Synology, and Bintronic. The representatives will introduce latest products and solutions. The event hopes to bring Taiwan and India even more closer.

Taiwan to facilitate economic recovery

Ms. Amelia WJ Day, Secretary General, Bureau of Foreign Trade, MOEA, said: "We hope that Taiwan and India collaborate even further. Taiwan Excellence is a great platform that supports products made in Taiwan, with tremendous focus on quality. Six of Taiwan's iconic companies are participating in the event and sharing their solutions. We will also highlight smart city business opportunities."

Frost and Sullivan has said that the global market for smart cities will top $2 trillion by 2025. The technology market for smart cities covers a wide range of apps areas. The Indian government has been initiating several projects, such as the Made in India and Digital India. There is also a program to drive digital initiatives in a number of fields, such as smart city, ICT, smart water treatment, energy solutions, etc.

Taiwan is ready to facilitate post-pandemic economic recovery. Taiwan has well developed ICT supply chain. Many companies are now developing innovative smart city solutions.

Natural allies

Rajoo Goel, Secretary General, ELCINA, said that Taiwan and India are natural allies. They have had an excellent relationship. Taiwan companies have invested $360 million in 2019. Trade has been growing very rapidly. We see lot of synergy between India and Taiwan. Taiwan and India are also natural allies. In this show, a number of Taiwanese companies are participating. This can be implemented very quickly in India. These can be in the areas of energy management, waste management, water management, urban development, and key citizen services.

The Smart City Alliance was launched in 2015. It is one transformational area where we can collaborate. In India, 31% of our population lives in the urban areas. This will increase to 40% by 2030. This is obviously putting lot of pressure on the infrastructure, which needs to be upgraded. More smart city projects are now going to the Taiwanese companies. India, and ELCINA, are very eager to support Taiwan's activities in India, for smart cities and other domains.

Global ICT trends

Jason Tsai, Research Manager, Topology Research Institute, talked about the global ICT market trends. There is global uncertainty all around. There are the Black Swan and Gray Rhino events, along with a global disease, natural disasters, trade wars, political issues, and high unemployment rates.

If we look at the global ICT market, the smartphone market is receding. However, smart speakers, tablets, notebooks, TVs and servers, etc., are going up. There is more thrust on WFH and education. The education market is similar to WFH. Students need to buy educational notebooks.

According to TrendForce, there are more type of products, such as wearables, IoT, and other smart life products. We are transforming from one world factory to multi-location manufacturing and local production. There is customization and localization, as well. The strategy of the world factory is changing. Companies are moving their production base to the other locations, including South Asia and India. About 35% of he Indian population is urban.

There are challenges such as various types of products, with multi-location manufacturing and local production. Taiwanese companies have global supply chain integration capabilities. They have professional experience and technology, and production quality and flexibility. The companies are also having customized service to meet the diverse needs and perfect after-sales services.

Taiwan Excellence Awards

Next, there was a presentation featuring six winners from the Taiwan Excellence Awards.

Peter Lai, sales manager, Advantech, talked about AI. Advantech has edge AI solutions that are empowering AI at the edge. Products include acceleration modules, etc. There are target apps such as traffic monitoring/video surveillance, kiosk/smart retail, robotics/AGV/drones, medical imaging, and AOI analysis. Advantech has also launched the FaceView solution for contactless and remote access service.

Edward Lu, GM Moxa, India: He introduced smart city solutions. Moxa is a leading provider of edge connectivity, industrial computing, and network infrastructure. India is a very important market. There is an office in Bangalore since 2010. India has smart city projects at Allahabad, Vishakapatnam, and Vadodara. Moxa provides connectivity solutions for the networks. Most of Moxa's solutions have been used in smart transportation systems, as well. Moxa has also been providing 24/7 operation vehical data for FETC, in Taiwan. Moxa has partnered with many companies, across several industries.

Pema Lin, Business Development Manager, Merit Lilin Ent. Co. Ltd, provides innovation in video surveillance. Lilin has its own AI ANPR system. The Aida ANPR server is a perfect solution for plate recognition. It is also capable of detecting activities such as parking spot detections, etc. There is smooth license plate recognition even during heavy traffic flow. Lilin face recognition system can be integrated into the system. There is the mask detection system and temperature detection camera.

Arshpreet Sharma, India Account Manager, Avision, said the company was established in 1991 at Science Park, Hsinchu. Avision is offering the self-service copier. It can also be shared with the public. The machine is highly secure. You can also print and copy anywhere. Next, there is the multifunction printer. Avision sos the first to have intelligent copy and scan functions. Avision is also offering a network scanner, with scan speed of 60ppm. It also has the production scanner with 120-page color image and double sides in one minute.

Danny Wong, Sales Manager, Synology Inc., said they are offering network-attached storage, video recorders, etc. Synology is setting the standard for AI. There are features such as intrusion detections, counting people, people and vehicle detection, and face recognition. Faces can be recognized in every 1 second and cross check in every 5 seconds. There are Covid-19 solutions, which help uncover faces, and integrated with thermal cameras. An example is the Taipei City Station Metro Mall, there is the Synology system to inspect people.

Ms. Alice Chao, International Trade Specialist, Bintronic Enterprise Co. Ltd. said they can provide smart home solutions. There are remote control solutions, as well, along with smart controls and voice control solutions. Bintronic is working with TSMC. Features include two-way communication, etc. We have also integrated IoT with smart blinds. For smart home, Bintronic supports Apple and Google.