The NUC is is good hands with Asus as it outlines its future plans
Mini PCs have a dedicated following. Count me among them! When news came that Intel was handing over the reins of its NUC (Next Unit of Computing) business to Asus, I was definitely intrigued by the possibilities. Consumers aren't the only market for NUCs though, as Asus is courting commercial and enterprise clients with custom NUC devices designed for a wide variety of use cases.
The Register spoke with Asus senior vice president Jacky Hsu, who outlined plans Asus has to develop custom machines for various commercial customers. This includes embedded, industrial and application specific use cases across such diverse roles as digital signage, point-of-sale, cloud, AI or warehouse and factory applications, each of which have their own environmental considerations.
When we think of NUCs, we might think of a cuboid style machine or large book sized form factors. Asus is planning to shake that up a bit, with various form factors designed for different use cases. It'll do this by designing custom solutions with different I/O considerations and motherboards to create NUCs that fit into a specific area.
The custom I/O part is interesting. One can imagine Asus designing NUCs with different Ethernet standards, SFP connections, D-SUB, Serial, DIN or any other type of connection you can think of, depending on what is required. If I wanted 10,000 NUCs with FireWire connections, Asus could probably oblige.
Gaming NUCs have been around for many years—including this one with an Intel i9 13900K and RTX 3080 Ti. Asus hasn't revealed concrete details on its plans for gaming NUCs, but KW Chao, the general manager of Asus's NUC business unit, has said ROG branded NUCs are under consideration.
With the news that Intel's Meteor Lake family
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