Arrow Electronics Helps Enterprises and Startups in China’s Greater Bay Area Boost AI and IoT Capabilities

Newly launched engineering and supply chain services making it more accessible for engineers and innovators to create, make and manage technology of tomorrow

HONG KONG, CHINA – Media OutReach – March 20, 2019 – Global technology-solutions provider, Arrow Electronics announced at its annual “Arrow Technology Showcase” event held today in Shenzhen, China, the launch of engineering and supply chain services designed to put best-in-class technological know-how and robust ecosystem support into the hands of innovators and entrepreneurs in China’s Greater Bay Area, making it easier for them to create, make and manage technology of tomorrow.

Simon Yu (centre), president of Arrow’s Asia-Pacific components business, with Hong Kong, Taipei, Japan and South Korea team representatives at the robot boxing contest at the Arrow Technology Showcase 2019 in Shenzhen.

To support business growth of large enterprises and startups in the Greater Bay Area, Arrow has launched a range of new engineering and supply chain services covering design tools, proof-of-concept review, rapid prototyping, turnkey solution design service, embedded software, cloud software integration, edge computing, sensing technology, advanced connectivity network, power management, data analytics, production and secure assets disposal.

Greater Bay Area (a cluster of 11 cities with a combined population of over 69 million people and a GDP at US$1.5 trillion in 2017) is expected to be the largest economy by 2020, among some global bay and metropolitan economic and technology centers such as New York City Metro Area, San Francisco Bay Area, and Tokyo Bay¹. The recent development of innovation and technology in the Greater Bay Area was announced earlier this month by the Chinese government for constructing an international sci-tech and innovation center between Shenzhen and Hong Kong and another one between Zhuhai and Macau².

“The Greater Bay Area, rising to be among the top global technology and innovation power hubs, is home to tens of thousands of international as well as local technology startups and enterprises.  Everyday these entrepreneurs and innovators are competing for achieving technological advancements and racing to commercialize their inventions at an unprecedented pace. As a global technology life-cycle solutions provider, we are committed to making our best-in-class engineering resources, technological expertise, and supply chain capabilities, and a vast global network of technology ecosystem partners more accessible than ever to help them solve complex engineering problems, remove time-to-market barriers, and accelerate their idea-to-prototype-to-production journey, ” said Simon Yu, president of Arrow’s Asia-Pacific components business.

1.     http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201806/07/WS5b18ca85a31001b82571eb22.html

2.     http://en.businesstimes.cn/articles/108757/20190306/china-looks-to-step-up-greater-bay-area-s-innovation-lead-with-international-center-construction.htm

During the event, Arrow, along with 100 of world’s top technology suppliers and emerging technology startups showcased a wide-range of innovative technology solutions and products from artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), and robotics, to edge computing and data analytics.

Creating tomorrow’s technology, today

Headquartered in Shenzhen with branch offices in the US, Europe and Japan, Seeed Studio has been partnering with technology providers such as Arrow in empowering makers and creators to bring their products to market via Arrow’s ecommerce platform.  Seeed Studio offers a wide array of hardware platforms and sensor modules, customization and agile manufacturing services.  “We have been leveraging Arrow’s engineering and supply chain services as we build out a collaborative network that taps into the tremendous benefits of open source technology, crowd innovations, and agile manufacturing, which are crucial to driving technological breakthroughs,” said Eric Pan, CEO, Seeed Studio.

Also on display at the event was Nybble, a robotic cat built on open source platform.  An Arrow certified campaign on Indiegogo, Nybble successfully achieved 270% of its campaign funding target.  The campaign is now at its final development stage, using Seeed Studio’s fusion printed circuit board assembly and agile manufacturing service.

Since 2016, Arrow has been collaborating with Indiegogo to offer Arrow certification programs, providing campaigners access to design and engineering tools, personalized consultation to address design challenges, and marketing and promotional support from Arrow and Indiegogo.

Making robots more intelligent

Syrius Robotics, a Shenzhen-based technology start-up also showcased its Syrius autonomous mobile robot (AMR) at the event. “There is significant innovative collaboration that went into the design of our invention – everything from advanced software and multi-sensor fusion algorithms, a well-orchestrated set of sensors and actuators for good human-machine interaction, powered by Nvidia’s intelligent machine platform, to a robust framework for rapid delivery of sensor data and commands and a real-time operating system for safe operation,” said Adam Jiang, founder of Syrius Robotics. “As we scale and expand our business, we look forward to partnering with technology companies such as Arrow to enable us to tap into their global innovation ecosystem value chain for building next-generation autonomous machines.”

Offering Nvidia’s latest Jetson Xavier AI computer, Arrow connects global customers and developers to the right technologies to enable transformative digital business and to accelerate the development and deployment of AI solutions for manufacturing, logistics, smart cities and healthcare.

Managing technology for sustainability

Businesses today are focused on how they can contribute to more sustainable cities as well as increasing productivity. MoVertical Farm, a Hong Kong-based aquaculture farm, uses IoT technologies and up-cycled shipping containers to create mobile vertical farming solutions. “We farm fish without a pond and we grow vegetables without soil.  We believe technology can help us revolutionize farming.  However, we need the necessary technology and engineering solutions to achieve this goal. Arrow is a valuable go-to technology partner to us as it provides us with the fundamental resources we need to create what we have achieved today. Leveraging Arrow’s engineering and supply chain services, we are able to integrate these technology solutions into our sustainable and environmentally friendly aquafarming solution that alleviates the limitations of natural resources.  This smashes physical barriers and climate constraints and increases yields with better control and monitoring of the environment,” said Arthur Lee, founder of MoVertical Farm.

The event also featured a panel discussion led by technology experts and entrepreneurs on trends and opportunities in AI and IoT development, and a robot boxing contest.  The competition was joined by groups of award-winning young talents representing Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and Korea, to compete with their distinguished robot inventions.