Computex Taipei

COMPUTEX Taipei, or Taipei International Information Technology Show (Chinese: 台北國際電腦展; pinyin: Táiběi guójì diànnǎo zhǎn), is a computer expo held annually in Taipei, Taiwan. Since the early 2000s, it is among one of the largest computer and technology trade shows in the world.

Development

COMPUTEX is co-organized by government-funded Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) and private sector Taipei Computer Association (TCA). The first expo, then called Taipei Computer Show, was held in 1981 and started out as a place where small and medium-sized businesses in Taiwan's nascent computer industry could display their products. Stan Shih, a former head of the TCA, proposed to change to the current name in the fourth expo. As Taiwan's information technology industry took off in the early 1990s and as the Foreign Trade Council Display Hall in Taipei Songshan Airport was put back into use in the eighth and ninth expo, COMPUTEX has since rapidly expanded and become an important showcase for the IT industry globally. Now it has become the second largest computer expo in the world (after CeBIT) and the largest in Asia, with participation from major manufacturers such as Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, and others, as well as Taiwanese brand names such as Acer and ASUS.