Wistron Group has forged a strategic alliance with Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) to jointly tap business opportunities arising from proliferating 5G and AI applications.
Under the alliance, Wistron's wholly-owned digital transformation service subsidiary WiAdvance Technology will have a 20% stake and one board seat taken by CHT to cement partnership and expand collaboration between both sides.
Wistron chairman Simon Lin said that apart from WiAdvance, the group's other subsidiaries including Wiwynn and Wistron NeWeb will also join the cross-the-board cooperation efforts with Taiwan's leading telecom operator rather than handling individual cooperation projects.
Lin said his group used to focus R&D resources on device assembly, but will step up its presence in the service sector through cross-industry cooperation. He stressed that the Wistron-CHT tie-up will be able to maximize synergies in the 5G era.
Wistron, a major hardware manufacturer, can supply datacenter equipment and 5G terminal solutions for CHT, while the telecom carrier's strong connections with the government and financial service sectors can also bring potential business opportunities for Wistron, industry sources said.
Both sides are expected to deepen cooperation in the 5G private networks and O-RAN services, with Wistron likely to supply multi-access edge computing (MEC) solutions and introduce independent software vendors (ISV) for CHT, the sources said, adding that they may also extend cooperation into the fields of autonomous driving and drone applications.
CHT chairman Chi-mau Hsieh noted that his company and Wistron can jointly help Taiwanese investors in Asia carry out digital transformation to boost their competitiveness.
