Founded by Jim Liu in 1995, ADLINK was different from the start. At the time, most Asian based companies were focused solely on manufacturing and quick financial return. But Jim has always been determined to make a difference globally for our customers and partners – by working as a trusted ally providing leading value with embedded computing technology. That’s ADLINK — the Analog Digital LINK.

Today, our founding ideals are lived out in new and innovative ways. We at ADLINK are working to accelerate deployment of AI at the edge to improve operations and services across industries. 

Building trust in embedded computing: ADLINK firsts 1996- 2000

Right from the start, we established ADLINK as a technology-leading platform provider in the embedded computing industry.

We released the PCI-9112, the first PCI-based data acquisition card in Asia. The cPCI-2000 3U CompactPCI System won the “8th Symbol of Excellence Award.”

We were awarded ISO-14001, ISO-9001, and then ISO-9002 certifications in our Taiwan HQ. 

We established ADLINK Beijing and Shanghai subsidiaries in China, our ADLINK Singapore subsidiary, and ADLINK Technology America, Inc. And we set up our CompactPCI R&D center. 

Expansion: going international 2001- 2015 

What happens with a young, healthy company that has a strategic vision, values and talent? We grow. 

In the early years of the millennium, ADLINK established our first European office in Germany, a liaison office in India, a subsidiary in Shenzhen, China, and an R&D center in Monterey, California, USA. We installed a signal integrity R&D lab for current and next generation high speed signal designs. 

We successfully implemented 6 Sigma and were TL9000 certified. 
 We were listed on TAIEX, Taiwan Stock Exchange–Stock Number: 6166.

And we won more awards: 

• DAQStreaming won the 2004 National Gold Award of Excellence 
• PCI-9820, PXIS-2700, PXI-3700, DAQStreaming, cPCI-6240, cPCI-6820, cPCI-6840, NrPRO-900A won the “12th Taiwan Symbol of Excellence Award” 
• NuPRO-900A won the “Best Choice of Computex” award 
• cPCIS-3300BLS and cPCI-6860 won the “11th Taiwan Symbol of Excellence Award” 
• DAQ-2000 Series, USBDAQ-9100-MS, cPCIS-2551 each won the “10th Symbol of Excellence Award” 

Strategic investments by Agilent Technologies, Inc. and Keysight Technologies gave ADLINK access to additional technology and management expertise, enabling us to more effectively compete in a dynamic worldwide environment 

We completed acquisition of Ampro Computers, Inc. in the US in 2008. The combination of ADLINK and Ampro created a company with the ability to offer enhanced design, research and development and manufacturing for our embedded computing product offering. We also acquired the LiPPERT Embedded Computers in Germany, as well as PrismTech Inc. and PENTA GmBH which allowed us to offer edge solutions with leading software platforms and tools for the Internet of Things (IoT), industrial internet and advanced wireless communication. We increased shareholding ratio to 85.1% equity in our ADLINK Japan subsidiary.  

And we attained Intel® Intelligent Systems Alliance Premier Level, the highest tier of membership to align Intel IoT Alliance technology roadmaps and programs. “Premier members of the Intel Intelligent Systems Alliance collaborate with Intel at the highest level to align our technology roadmaps and programs,” said Troy Smith, Director, Intelligent Systems Alliance at Intel in a  press release. “ADLINK has been elevated to our highest tier of membership for their global product capabilities and market-oriented platforms. Intel looks forward to ADLINK’s continued delivery of leading edge solutions.” 

And continued delivery of leading edge solutions is what we did. 

A new era: leading edge computing 2016 – present  

At ADLINK, we know intelligent edge computing delivers business value by:

• Opening up experimentation and innovation – expanding access to available data and computing resources 
• Building powerful platforms – using modular, open source components with ease and speed 
• Moving to real-time capabilities – taking action when data is most valuable 

Our CTO, Angelo Corsaro PhD, describes it like this: 
“Edge computing enables data to be processed closer to where it is produced and can be as far as the device itself. The edge is not a definitive line and should be drawn wherever it is needed by different applications. ADLINK has been one of the driving forces of this new technology…”  

We’ve proven we belong at the forefront of technology. In the last five years:  

• We’ve embraced open source: ADLINK has become a key contributor and leader within the Eclipse open source community, leading development on projects such as Eclipse Cyclone DDS, Zenoh, fog05 and the Edge Native Working Group; also joining the Sensor Open Systems Architecture consortium and more. 
• We’re making robots come alive: ADLINK joined the Robot Operating System (ROS) 2 Technical Steering Committee as well as became a member of the ROS-Industrial Consortium, lending our capabilities to advance innovation in robotics. 
• We’re making ‘Autonomous for All’ a reality: we formed an autonomous vehicles alliance with ITRI, Tier IV, Autocore and Autoware to further development in autonomous mobility and ROS 2 based platforms with Edge AI. 
• We’ve committed to innovating 5G: joined in 5G-DIVE, aimed at establishing the technical merits and business value of 5G technologies. 
• We’ve become thought leaders on all things edge: We were accepted into the Forbes Technology Council, an invitation-only community for world-class CIOs, CTOs, and technology executives, contributing regularly on topics of AI, IoT and robotics. 

We formed a strategic partnership with LCD panel maker AU Optronics Corp for building an industrial and commercial AIoT ecosystem. We also set up an AMR joint venture with Foxconn.  

With AWS IoT Greengrass, we brought AI to the edge through our IoT smart vision solutions featuring ADLINK’s new generation NEON Smart Cameras. And we moved our market-leading, proven Data Distribution Service to open source as Eclipse Cyclone. 

We signed on as an NVIDIA Quadro and Jetson Preferred Partner to accelerate Edge AI deployment, and partnered with with Lenovo to extend IoT and OEM Business Reach. 

The awards continued. We made CRN’s “10 Hottest New IoT Devices & Products of 2019” list. We were named a Top 15 Edge Computing Company by Datamation. In 2018, Compass Intelligence honored ADLINK as Edge Computing Company of the Year.  

And in this, our 25th anniversary year, ADLINK won multiple machine vision AI technology awards by Compass Intelligence, Vision Systems Design and Embedded Computing Design 

What do we see going forward? 

CEO Jim Liu talks about the need to start transitioning from thinking only about automation to considering autonomy at the edge. He said, “The future of edge computing is edge autonomy. You need to consider how you can make every individual machine, or robotics, or even an autonomous vehicle as smart as possible so they can be autonomous. And if you want to fix the efficiency issue, or you want to get benefits, you have to consider how you can make sure all these machines, and people, and even utilities, connect together and ‘co-work’ together. That is the end [aim] of edge computing. It’s about how to support operational efficiency and get more and more benefit.” 

As leaders in edge computing, ADLINKers today are focused on helping our customers transition from automation to autonomy – at the edge, where raw data is turned into actionable, controllable information and where data analytics are most efficient and effective. 

At ADLINK, we’re proud of our leadership in key tech areas including IoT, robotics, AI, 5G and application-ready edge platforms. 

We’ve turned 25. There’s so much to celebrate – and so much more ahead!