ASUS Signs Agreement to Continue Development and Support of Intel’s NUC Business
ASUS and Intel announced late Tuesday that they had agreed on a term sheet for Intel’s NUC business, ensuring continued support for existing NUC hardware and development of new designs. Under the terms of the agreement, ASUS will receive a non-exclusive license to Intel’s existing NUC system designs, the right to develop future designs, and an obligation to support existing NUCs. The company, the world’s largest motherboard supplier and one of his top 10 PC makers, will therefore take over a significant part of the NUC program.
“As we shift our strategy to enable our ecosystem partners to continue to innovate and grow their NUC Systems products, our priority is to ensure a smooth transition for our customers and partners.” Sam Gao, Intel vice president and general manager, Intel Client Platform Solutions, said: “We look forward to ASUS continuing to provide excellent products and support to our NUC system customers.”
ASUS Chief Operating Officer Joe Hsieh said: “Thank you, Intel, for the trust you have placed in us to advance our NUC system product line.” We are confident that our footprint will expand significantly, and we are fully committed to ensuring the excellent support and service our NUC Systems customers have come to expect.”
The move comes after Intel announced last week that it was exiting the NUC business, one of several strategic restructurings Intel has undertaken in the last few years. , and the company has exited many non-core businesses. With Intel doubling down on chip design and manufacturing, these business units have expanded to include Intel’s SSD/NAND business (now Solidigm/SK hynix) and Intel’s built server business (now his MiTAC). , has been frequently sold to other companies.
Under the terms of the proposed deal, ASUS will create a new business unit called ASUS NUC, which will be able to manufacture and sell Intel’s 10th to 13th generation NUC PCs, as well as gain rights to develop future NUC designs. will be The deal also obliges ASUS to provide support for the platform, and both Intel and ASUS reiterate the importance of continued platform support (and business continuity).
Oddly enough, the deal is clearly non-exclusive. So even though ASUS is set to be Intel’s successor in his NUC space, ASUS doesn’t necessarily dominate his NUC market. However, Intel has not announced any other licensees at this time. The limited details of the deal also don’t mention ASUS taking over employees from Intel’s existing NUC group, so there’s no reason to believe that it’s a large business division like other divisions such as SSD to date. It doesn’t appear to be a transfer.
In any case, the licensing of Intel’s NUC business should greatly strengthen ASUS’ position in the compact PC market. ASUS has vast engineering resources and a wide product line-up, but his NUC-sized PC offerings offer a limited range. The company currently offers the PN and PB series of mini PCs and several ExpertCenter desktop models that fit the SFF category. The PN series can be called a clone of his mainstream NUC, and ASUS probably has a variety of notebooks that make his NUC laptop kit irrelevant. However, ASUS currently does not have a product equivalent to the NUC Enthusiast and NUC Extreme models, or the NUC Compute Elements.
Ultimately, these NUC products will complement ASUS’ current lineup of Mini PC and SFF systems, allowing ASUS to expand its overall footprint in the compact PC space. The deal is also beneficial to his existing NUC ecosystem as current users are guaranteed support and will continue to be covered.
PN Mini-PC Series – ASUS Avatar for NUC Mainstream
Looking ahead, ASUS has plenty of room for continued innovation in the NUC space. For example, you can easily enable USB-C PD to power your NUC or even PoE support for your NUC for industrial applications. ASUS is probably one of the few companies in the world that can afford to continue innovating while running their current programs at scale.
One of the big questions is who will produce existing and future NUCs.intel outsourced At least some of the NUCs are provided to third parties such as ECS and Pegatron under OEM agreements, which is normal practice. In contrast, ASUS outsources most of the production to its subsidiary, Pegatron.I don’t know exactly who made 10th – 13th It’s a Gen.NUC for Intel at the moment, but if it’s not Pegatron, it remains to be seen if ASUS will continue to order systems from its current suppliers or try to shift production to its regular manufacturing partners.
