ICS Shines at Inaugural embedded world North America

ICS made a splash at October’s embedded world North America conference and exhibition – the global platform for the embedded industry – with a brand-new 20 x 30 booth packed with interactive demos showcasing everything from software-defined vehicles and industrial IoT to AI on the edge and microcontroller (MCU) development.

“Our booth was packed with demos – some really intriguing stuff,” said ICS Vice President of Engineering Jay Noble. “We showcased applications for AI and machine vision, presented an in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) system in both Flutter and Qt, as well as had a section on driver assistance and distracted-driver technology.  Our HMI Accelerator tool demonstrated how we can speed products to market, while our simulated Mocha Pete’s coffee shop brought IoT tech to life and showed how Flutter can be used across multiple platforms, including embedded, cloud/web, mobile and desktop. And that was just a glimpse of what we offered—it was wall-to-wall excitement!”

A New Chapter in embedded world

This year marked the inaugural embedded world North America, hosted in the “Silicon Hills” tech hub of Austin, Texas. Proximity to industry giants like AMD, NXP and Tesla tilted the focus more toward the interests of major hardware developers compared to the show in its traditional venue in Nuremberg, Germany.

“The goal of embedded world is to provide attendees and vendors with unparalleled insight into the embedded systems landscape,” explained ICS Vice President of Sales Dan McGillivary. “While the North American show is evolving, this year’s event had a pronounced emphasis on display and board technologies. Still there was a vital space for software services companies like ICS, and we seized the opportunity to forge connections and engage in lively discussions about key technologies and use cases.”

Engaging Demos and Exciting Conversations

“The trade show primarily attracted hardware manufacturers, with a heavy focus on Systems on a Module (SOMs), microcontrollers, and LCD displays,” noted ICS Senior Engineer Jeff Tranter. “As a software services provider, we could have been overlooked but visitors were drawn to our booth due to the variety of demos. Our display of a production Indian Pursuit motorcycle, featuring the industry-leading Ride Command+ infotainment system we helped develop, certainly caught attention and brought many curious attendees into our space. While hardware may have drawn them initially, our discussions quickly broadened the conversation.”

A Focus on AI and the Future of Embedded Development

“From my conversations it was clear there continues to be significant interest in AI technologies in the embedded space, something we noted at the European show in April,” said ICS CEO Peter Winston. “NVIDIA Jetson, a leading platform for robotics and embedded edge AI applications, was a hot topic, along with discussions around static analysis. We also delved into the edge vs. cloud debate, particularly regarding local image recognition capabilities. There were also many conversations about large language models (LLMs) and their power requirements, the impact on embedded development.”

Reflecting on the event, Winston added, “The key takeaway for me was the clear direction of embedded development toward AI, video and microcontrollers—an insight that aligns perfectly with our recent projects. We’ve been leveraging AI both in the cloud and on the edge to create next-gen applications and devices with exceptional user experience so it was reassuring to see our business strategy validated in these discussions.”

Looking Ahead

As the first embedded world in North America, this event is poised to grow and evolve, expanding its focus from hardware to encompass all aspects of embedded development, including application software, embedded vision and cybersecurity – a perfect fit for ICS. We are already gearing up for next year’s show and beyond—mark your calendars for 2025, as ICS will be back with even more exciting innovations!