As the adoption of AI vision applications in the industry expands to the high-end market, M&A movements are also becoming active along with technological competition to strengthen competitiveness in the growing AI vision market.

Advantech, a global leader in industrial IoT, announced on the 8th that it will acquire a 100% stake in BitFlow, a US company specializing in high-end image capture and AI machine vision technology.

The collaboration with Bitflow will complement Advantech’s high-performance vision inspection product line and enable more efficient GPU computing and AI vision applications. Additionally, through this acquisition, Advantech will strengthen its global corporate capabilities to foster local talent and secure manufacturing excellence in North America.

After the merger of the two companies, Advantech’s North American business development team will work with the existing Bitflow product R&D team to develop products and solutions for the AI vision market. Through this, Advantech plans to build a global network and AI and image processing product line, aiming to become one of the top three AI vision leaders in the world.

The background of this merger and acquisition reflects the industry trend that various AI technologies are being implemented in applications due to the advancement of AI vision computing.

In particular, visual inspection for quality control in the manufacturing industry used to be done directly by people, but now most of it is being replaced by inspection using AI. This has the advantage of enabling more accurate and precise inspection through automated processes, reducing labor costs and improving production yields.

In the future, Advantech plans to develop and apply high-speed image capture technology across its entire product line based on Bitflow's market.

It was also reported that Advantech, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, will actively expand global business opportunities for AI machine vision through various networks based on its long-standing global branding and business infrastructure capabilities.

“High-performance vision computing is becoming more sophisticated when combined with AI solutions,” said Magic Pao, vice president of Advantech’s Industrial Cloud and Video Group. “In particular, the industrial AI market has been growing rapidly over the past three years.”

“In the past, Advantech mainly focused on applications for traditional machine vision equipment, but as the industry moves toward high-end machine vision applications such as advanced semiconductor manufacturing and medical imaging, Advantech is complementing its high-end image acquisition products to meet the demand for high-precision, advanced vision inspection,” said Vice President Pao.

At the same time, to meet the demand for high-performance industrial machine vision applications in the industry, Advantech added that it has developed solutions such as △AI cameras △Edge AI systems △AI servers and professional application software (iApps).

In particular, Advantech believes that the acquisition of Bitflow is an opportune time to leverage its high-speed image capture technology to expand its high-performance industrial vision computing products and the AI and imaging markets, creating synergies as AI smart applications and manufacturing in North America continue to grow.

Bitflow's products are 'Made Advantech expects that the availability of 'in USA' will further strengthen its already strong position in the AI software development and high-precision vision inspection markets across North America.

Bitflow CEO Avner Bunaru explained the acquisition, saying, “Our decision to partner with Advantech was based on Advantech’s core elements: its well-known global brand position in the North American machine vision application field, its ability to supply industrial hardware, and its complete after-sales support service.”

He also said, “Advantech’s manufacturing capabilities were a very important factor as they account for a significant portion of the vision inspection market, and we believe that the combination of Bitflow’s AI visual imaging technology and Advantech’s R&D, sales, and manufacturing capabilities will play a major role in expanding our influence in the AI vision market.”