Advantech Acquires Image Acquisition Specialist BitFlow

Industrial IoT technology developer Advantech has acquired image acquisition and AI machine vision technology firm BitFlow Inc. Per the cash acquisition, Advantech said, it will further BitFlow’s market foundation, product range, and core technologies in high-speed image acquisition. BitFlow is a leading developer of frame grabbers.

According to Magic Pao, associate vice president of Advantech’s industrial cloud and video group, while the application of advanced computer vision has been highly integrated with AI solutions, strong growth in industrial AI has become much more evident in the last three years in particular. In the past, Pao said, Advantech mainly focused on applications for traditional machine vision equipment; the company provided industrial-grade cameras and frame grabber cards to meet the basic needs of production inspection.

“But, as the industry moves toward high-end machine vision applications, such as for advanced semiconductor manufacturing and medical imaging, Advantech will need to supplement high-end image acquisition products to fulfill the demands for high-precision advanced vision inspection," Pao said.

After the acquisition, the original BitFlow product R&D team and Advantech’s North American business development team will work together, and BitFlow’s sales and after-sales services will be integrated into Advantech’s global network and AI and image processing product lines.