Unigen Company, established in 1991, initially targeted on growing reminiscence and storage modules. Over time, the corporate has advanced to supply Digital Manufacturing Companies (EMS) to its rising industrial prospects. By leveraging its manufacturing services to supply OEM merchandise, Unigen has expanded its attain into new sectors, together with medical gadgets and protection/aerospace.
This ongoing enlargement led the best way for Unigen’s entry into edge synthetic intelligence, as a lot of its prospects started deploying edge options. Given its established experience in reminiscence, storage, and high-reliability manufacturing, Unigen determined to include edge AI accelerators into its product choices.
At present, Unigen’s AI accelerator modules embody Biscotti and Poptart. Biscotti is designed in an E1.S kind issue, whereas Poptart is available in an E3.S kind issue. These gadgets allow the corporate’s AI accelerators to be built-in into customary server drive bays or edge gadgets.
“We all know our prospects wish to really feel assured that the AI resolution they deploy right this moment will proceed to fulfill their wants for years to come back,” says Paul W. Heng, founder and CEO of Unigen. “That’s why we all the time embody plug-and-play and scorching swap capabilities. These options cut back the chance of system downtime and are simply upgradable, so prospects can scale shortly.”
Unigen notably designed these AI modules to assist a variety of deployment environments, from compact edge gateways to edge AI servers and even full racks for on-premises AI in knowledge facilities. The design method emphasizes ease of integration and scalability.
Each Biscotti and Poptart include Hailo-8 deep studying processors. The Biscotti E1.S module integrates two Hailo-8 AI accelerators on a small, 9.5 mm-thick card, together with a PCIe change to interface them with host techniques. The bigger Poptart E3.S module is designed for larger density and efficiency. Even the Poptart module has two Hailo-8 processors (52 TOPS AI efficiency) with extra board space and thermal headroom.
Wanting into the longer term, Unigen is increasing its edge AI portfolio with new merchandise throughout visible and generative AI domains. “When it comes to development alternatives for visible AI, we see alternatives in video administration techniques (VMS), crime prevention, medical, and agriculture industries,” says Heng.
Moreover, in healthcare, medical imaging diagnostics, and affected person monitoring on the edge may gain advantage from visible AI accelerators, which can present real-time AI insights into hospitals or distant clinics. In agriculture, edge AI modules may energy sensible farming options reminiscent of crop monitoring, automated harvesting techniques, and livestock monitoring, all whereas working on-site (usually in bandwidth and connectivity-constrained environments).
In parallel, the upcoming generative AI choices purpose to carry the ability of AI content material technology and huge language fashions (LLMs) to buyer premises. These will deal with enabling small and medium companies and academic establishments that usually have use circumstances for AI assistants or content material technology.
“The brand new options will serve rising software areas by permitting prospects so as to add AI to their premises with out altering the prevailing structure of their services. That is achieved as a result of our inference options comply with Open Compute Project (OCP) specs,” says Heng.
By aligning to OCP requirements, Unigen ensures interoperability. For instance, an OCP-compliant edge AI server or module from Unigen can work with different OCP-compliant racks, chassis, and administration frameworks out-of-the-box.
“We all the time prioritize performance-per-watt and performance-per-dollar,” Heng provides. “This enables us to strike the very best stability of effectivity vs worth for our prospects.”
To assist its AI ambitions, Unigen has been upgrading its manufacturing footprint throughout the USA and internationally. The drive to onshore high-tech manufacturing in the USA has led Unigen to ramp up home manufacturing capability. The corporate has added extra manufacturing strains (together with environment friendly U-shaped meeting strains for larger throughput) and invested in surface-mount and automatic check gear to fulfill the shopper demand.
Unigen has additionally expanded into Southeast Asia with a brand new manufacturing website in Malaysia. The transfer was a response to buyer suggestions and a method to extend geographical diversification. The Malaysian facility is a state-of-the-art plant with superior manufacturing strains and automation.
By establishing a presence in Malaysia, Unigen has strengthened its enterprise continuity, mitigating regional disruptions and optimizing logistics. An extra strategic advantage of this location is its proximity to Coraza Techniques, a sheet steel fabrication and tooling firm inside Unigen International Company. “Coraza is simply half-hour away from the brand new Malaysian facility, permitting us to supply vertical integration companies in a co-located space,” says Heng.
Unigen’s dual-pronged technique of investing in each the OEM and EMS segments stays as related as ever. The AI modules and servers have seen sturdy development over the previous a number of years, enabling them to increase their product line to serve rising software areas for visible and generative AI.
“AI adoption remains to be in its early days, and the alternatives forward are immense,” Heng concludes.
Associated
Article Subjects
AI accelerators | AI/ML | edge AI | digital manufacturing | generative AI | Unigen
