TIMTOS 2025

By Eric Brothers,, Editor, Manufacturing Group

Published March 28, 2025

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Part of the 30th anniversary celebrations, the Taipei 101 skyscraper featured a TIMTOS light show. PHOTO CREDIT: TAITRA

Celebrating its 30th edition since 1975, the Taipei International Machine Tool Show (TIMTOS 2025) brought together more than 1,000 exhibitors in 6,100 booths across three venues. Co-organized by the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) and the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI), the six-day event in March welcomed 4,163 international buyers from 90 countries – a 5.1% increase from the previous edition.

Unified by the theme Integrate to Innovate, the event focused on the numerous ways in which artificial intelligence (AI), smart manufacturing, and green sustainability could be brought together by precision machine tools using intelligent automation, digital twins, in-process metrology, expanded machine monitoring, machine vision, and energy saving components to reduce carbon emissions.

The importance of the event was evident by the presence of Dr. Ching-te Lai, president of Taiwan, during the opening ceremony. In his remarks, Lai said the attendance of more than 1,000 exhibitors shows the machine tool and manufacturing industries in Taiwan are growing ever stronger.

Onboard with AI

Dr. Ching-te Lai, president of Taiwan, attended TIMTOS’ opening ceremony.
PHOTOS BY ERIC BROTHERS UNLESS NOTED

James C.F. Huang, TAITRA chairman, said AI and automation are key to the next wave of industrial transformation, but industrial progress lies not only in technology but also in the next generation of AI talent.

David Chuang, TAMI chairman, whose 2,700-member strong organization is celebrating its 80th anniversary this year, noted TAMI has a history of promoting AI applications and net-zero carbon emissions and will work to help keep the industry in sync with international trends.

Raymond Greene, director of the American Institute in Taiwan, Taipei office, noted Taiwan is entering another age of innovation with AI. He emphasized the many economic ties between Taiwan and the U.S. and added the supply chain offers investment opportunities from both sides. Dr. Jyh-Huei Kuo, Taiwan’s minister of economic affairs, noted AI and automation can help solve the labor shortage and improve product quality.

Keynotes

The second day of TIMTOS 2025 featured keynote presentations from THK Chairman & CEO Akihiro Teramachi, who spoke about the role of manufacturing in the AI era and what it’ll take to develop the talent resources needed. Techman Robot CEO Haw Chen introduced Taiwan’s collaborative robot (cobot), developed from a vision-based robot arm transformed by AI to create a range of future smart robots. The addition of AI expands the cobots’ ability to position, identify, and measure parts with capabilities to inspect, classify images, and detect anomalies and be integrated with autonomous mobile robots (AMR). By integrating more sensors to see and AI to think, Chen explained robots can act to perform tasks throughout a factory in a real-time, closed-loop system. AI will drive smart manufacturing with layout, programming, and simulation with digital twins and provide quality data for training and deployment. Chen added future robots will be more flexible and more intelligent, allowing inspection and assembly with low-complexity setup.

Richard Wang from Dah Lih with the company’s MCV-1050 vertical machining center and manufacturing cell. Its X-axis travel is 1,050mm, Y-axis 560mm, and Z-axis, 560mm. A maximum 8,000rpm spindle is standard and it produces rapid traverse rates of 36m/min in the X- and Y-axis and 24m/min in the Z-axis.

Hitoshi Yoshida, chairman and CEO of Tokyo Seimitsu Co. Ltd. and chairman of the Japan Precision Measuring Instruments Manufacturers Association, spoke of the ongoing trend of shifting measurement from the inspection room to the production site. Automation using robots will enable 100% inspection of all parts as they’re being produced, a process reduced from minutes to seconds by non-contact optical roughness measurement.

Paul Chen, VP business development of Fair Friend Group (FFG) MAG Automotive, based in Michigan, spoke about implementing innovative strategies to achieve exceptional results. Christine Herbst- Kubitz, GM, Siemens Taiwan Digital Industries stressed how integrating real and digital worlds via AI and digital twins allows manufacturers to readily scale up operations. All four speakers participated in a forum answering attendees’ questions.

Exhibits

In the two Nangang Exhibition Center (TaiNEX) exhibit halls, national pavilions featuring the United States, Germany, and Switzerland shared space with Taiwan-made machine tools. The U.S. pavilion included representatives from Pennsylvania and West Virginia, along with familiar international brands in machining, cutting tools, and software: Mastercam, OSG, Rollomatic, Siemens, Heidenhain, FANUC, Mazak, and Mitsubishi. Domestic companies included TTGroup, Quaser Group, Vision Wide, YCM, You Ji, and Chmer, plus Palmary, Charles Machine, Kinwa, Wei Hong, Alex-Tech, and Ken, among others.

During TIMTOS, the 17th ceremony of the Taiwan Machine Tool Industry Awards for Excellence in Research and Innovation presented Dah Lih Machinery Industry Co. Ltd. the award of eminence for its DMC-650 portal-type machining center and manufacturing cell.

Elyn Huang, Palmary Machinery sales manager, describes the PCB-3015-3 CNC centerless grinding machine. Palmary Machinery Co. Ltd. (Palmary America in the U.S.) offers centerless, cylindrical, internal, vertical, surface, and special purpose CNC grinding machines.

Dah Lih, founded in 1960, is a Taiwan machine tool manufacturer of vertical, horizontal, double-column, and 5-axis machining centers. Richard Wang of Dah Lih’s international operations department explains the cell’s smart automation reduces cost, increases production efficiency, and improves product quality.

“Smart automation isn’t as simple as replacing human labor with automation,” Wang says. “The premise is mechanical equipment must have intelligent capabilities such as fault prediction, precision compensation, and automatic parameter setting, plus machine networking, data collection and analysis, and intelligent manufacturing process improvement.” He adds the company has also been committed to developing software for intelligent operation, energy saving, and carbon reduction for environmental sustainability.

“In addition to smart software for single machines,” Wang says, “Dah Lih Machinery has developed its own iMonitor remote monitoring software that can connect machines through a network to achieve visibility in factory management.”

Other energy and carbon saving improvements include smart meters that can generate statistics to provide machine operators with reference data on power consumption. Adaptive feedrate control and energy saving – where the hydraulic motor and spindle cooling unit stop running in standby mode and the oil injection interval is ignored when the machine isn’t running – are other functions that can save processing time and reduce CO2 emissions.

You Ji’s Jerry Wu with the YV1600ATC+C vertical turning center, suitable for machining jet engine casings.

Jerry Wu, deputy section manager for overseas sales at You Ji, says automation is frequently integrated into machine tools for faster cycle times to increase production. You Ji makes vertical and horizontal grinding machines; vertical milling, turning, and grinding machines; and vertical and horizontal lathes. You Ji’s vertical turning center YV1600ATC+C has a 1,600mm table diameter and maximum turning diameter of 1,800mm with 16-tool automatic tool changer (ATC) while the YV800ATC+C has a 32" 3-jaw hydraulic chuck and 900mm maximum turning diameter with a 12-tool ATC.

Successful matchmaking

TAITRA’s potential purchaser matchmaking event during TIMTOS enabled 315 sessions between 75 international customers from 22 countries and 102 exhibitors. Buyers came from the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, Poland, Vietnam, India, Israel, and Ukraine. A specialized networking event for the cutting tool sector introduced buyers from 14 countries, including the U.S., Germany, Mexico, and India. Exhibitor MEGA Machine reported a 70% order placement rate, with instant orders from Bulgaria and the Middle East, according to TAITRA.

New to the show, the Taiwan Excellence Pavilion and Taiwan Patent Go Pavilion showcased Taiwan’s innovation in smart machinery and cross-industry applications. These pavilions attracted significant interest from international buyers, the show’s organizers reported.