Asus is planning to launch custom NUCs

After being awarded Intel partner status to build Next Unit of Compute (NUC) mini-PCs, Asus is reportedly preparing to offer custom NUCs.

The news comes from Asus SVP Jackie Hsu, who spoke with The Register about the company’s strategy to continue building NUCs for consumers and commercial customers.

According to the report, the Taiwanese computer maker has industrial clients and cloud service provider edge deployments in mind for its upcoming custom NUCs.

Asus will carry out Intel’s NUC dream

The news comes around two months after Intel announced that it would be pulling the plug from its own NUC projects, instead handing them off to third-party partners. Asus was the first to be crowned a partner by Intel.

Hsu explained to The Register that its NUC IP will allow the company to explore custom NUCs, which would have different I/O configurations as per the requirements of a wider customer base.

The company also alluded to other form factors that could be more suitable for industrial clients – current NUCs measure 4×4 inches.

Use cases for the emerging market of custom NUCs could include self-service kiosks, POS machines, driving digital signage, and warehouse operations, says Hsu. There could also be space for Asus’s custom mini-PCs in edge cloud deployments, where additional processing power is required to fuel artificial intelligence.

Earlier this year, Intel hinted at Asus’s expertise in this area of the market, and its decision to explore edge devices is another move to build on its existing experience.

Asus has already started working on the designs of its first NUC devices, and Asus’s NUC General Manager KW Chao suggested that they may be here are early as the end of this year, or the beginning of 2024.