SMTA Ultra HDI Symposium, Day 1: AI at the Core or Out of the Game

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

It was a beautiful 81°F morning in Arizona last Wednesday as I headed to the third annual SMTA Ultra HDI Symposium, focused on AI and ultra high density interconnect technology.

Strategically held as part of Arizona’s Tech Week, this year’s conference took place in Avondale in Phoenix's West Valley. The event moved from the cozy offices of the Peoria Sports Complex (which paid homage to baseball’s spring training world) to the larger Avondale Conference Center, highlighting the importance of this area for electronics manufacturing investment.

Famously, the West Valley of Phoenix is home to TSMC’s massive semiconductor campus, still under construction but actively producing advanced chips (in addition to Intel’s expanded presence in the East Valley).

SMTA dedicated a full day to AI presentations and discussions, recognizing it as the primary accelerator of electronics hardware development and a critical element of business operations for industry member companies. Day one of the two-day conference, “AI Adoption in Global Electronics Manufacturing,” featured keynote Armando Viteri, CEO of AI consulting company Neubloc, speaking on “From AI Enabled to AI-at-the-Core: A Strategic Roadmap for Global 1000 Companies.”

Viteri was an engaging presenter who held the audience’s rapt attention for more than an hour. “I’m a ‘techno-optimist,” Viteri stated boldly at the outset, explaining that modern society is about to enter a time of abundance never before seen, with no company left unaffected by AI. He cited Jevons’ Paradox, in which Jevons’ original erroneous observation that the creation of a new, more efficient steam engine would result in lower overall coal consumption, when it actually propelled the technology into such widespread use that coal consumption increased significantly. This is relevant, as the widespread adoption and implementation of AI will, in Viteri’s estimation, require more humans in the workforce, not fewer. He emphatically declared that, by and large, workers will not lose their jobs as a result of AI, but run the risk of being replaced by those more skilled at using AI in those jobs to maximize productivity and efficiency.

“I have yet to meet one company that knows how to navigate this well,” he said. This is a tremendous opportunity for the companies and organizations that do it well and sooner. Viteri outlined the stages a company must go through to implement AI most successfully.

Finally, he turned his attention to why the electronics manufacturing sector requires a different AI strategy than other sectors, with the biggest gains expected in supply chain complexity, precision at sub-millimeter scales, EDA design tools, and compressed innovation cycles.

His message was clear and indisputable: Companies will cease to exist if they don’t advance to the next level of AI use. They will render themselves noncompetitive. People will continue to be the biggest roadblocks, so dedicating energy and time to organizational change management from the outset is a critical element of eventual success.

Other kernels of wisdom imparted included Viteri’s endorsement of Open AI over commercial products due to cost, flexibility, and security issues. The biggest threat to humanity is depopulation, the fallout of which only AI will be able to solve. He challenged us to create our own agent as an invaluable learning exercise.

Viteri packed so much into his keynote (which ran over time due to audience questions), but his pronouncement that the companies that lead electronics manufacturing by 2030 will be those making AI-at-the-Core decisions in their businesses today left a lasting impression. The choice is to commit to becoming a leader or be transformed by one’s competitors.

Next, the Student Technology Showcase featured the winning Team Nexus from the University of Advanced Technology (based in Tempe), which presented their AI tool built to address the supply chain visibility track put forth by SMTAI. Students Jeremy Demoranville, Jerrod Bolton, Isabela Teck, and Jonathan Mejia-Vanegas had just one month to create an agentic AI-driven app to address some of today’s largest challenges around supply chain: material availability, regulatory compliance considerations, counterfeit risk, logistical realities, and supplier performance to drive design decision-making and mitigate risk at the earliest stages. Their model included probabilistic risk scoring, supplier risk scoring, and an automated procurement tool. It is designed to save companies significant time and money.

After an interesting and very full morning, we enjoyed a lovely BBQ lunch and more discussion about the presentations.

“We are proud to have held this AI-focused event today for the first time,” said Tara Dunn, director of Training and Education for SMTA. “It is a valuable addition to the UHDI conference, which has grown steadily. Having the students present their work and receive an award really contributed to it being a great day.”

Three more AI-focused sessions took place in the afternoon session, largely focused on strategic planning and implementation in SMEs. Tomorrow’s agenda will be exclusively focused on UHDI. Stay tuned for day 2 coverage of the SMTA UHDI Symposium.