Infineon, Hyundai Partnership Helps Startups Thrive in Asia

While larger established companies all too often do things the way they have always done and try to find small, incremental improvements, startups often take a completely different approach which can totally disrupt the normal way of doing things. Their founders see the gaps that exist in the market and then try to innovate to fill those gaps. It is a high risk venture with the best of rewards, or on the other hand, it can cost the founders everything if the business fails as all too often they do. But, the chance of being the next Tesla and hitting a trillion dollar jackpot keeps those attempts coming. Startups often do best when there is disruption in the industry. Computing and the Internet caused one of those disruptions and now the top ten companies by market cap are dominated by companies like Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Tesla and Facebook, most of whom barely existed even a couple of decades ago.

That disruption is ongoing. In the next ten years it will become almost impossible to purchase a vehicle with an internal combustion engine. The technology that powered our motor vehicles for the last hundred years will become obsolete in the near term future. The way we make things will also change as Industry 4.0 gains widespread adoption. Smart cities will make our networks and services more efficient for our benefit. These changes offer startups the space to opportunity to not just enter new industries, but to define them. It is important to foster startups and give them every chance to succeed if possible. Even the established companies they challenge will prosper from the growing market, and of course selling the startups the products or services that they need.

And that’s exactly what Infineon is attempting as the company signs a MoU with Hyundai Motor Group to help support Asian startups with product level technical expertise that will increase their success rates and allow them to work closely with Infineon’s Co-Innovation Space in Singapore. The partnership will combine Infineon’s hardware solutions that include sensors, microcontrollers, actuators, and security, with Hyundai’s portfolio of startups which focus on over the technologies that include robotics, urban air mobility and AI. The initial phase will see joint activities undertaken by Infineon Technologies Asia Pacific and Hyundai CRADLE offices in Seoul and Singapore. The second phase will see the collaboration deepened and extended globally, to the areas where Hyundai CRADLE and Infineon have an established presence.

The partnership will see Infineon and Hyundai organize events such as conferences, hackathons and challenges together with ecosystem partners to expand the outreach to local startups in Southeast Asia. Both companies will jointly identify innovative startups that are active in future mobility, the IoT and artificial intelligence.

Infineon’s Singapore Co-Innovation Space offers startups a yearlong commitment to provide R&D and manufacturing facilities, as well as access to Infineon research, technology, engineering expertise and its global network.

www.infineon.com/startups