While large models and computing power are rapidly maturing, the AI industry as a whole continues to grapple with real-world challenges. Many technical solutions remain at the demonstration stage, making it difficult to translate them into tangible business value for customers. Industry competition is shifting from a race of raw computational power and model capabilities to a focus on the ability to deliver in real‑world scenarios.

On September 12, SIXUNITED’s FDE Academy was officially established and launched its inaugural training camp. By leveraging FDE (Forward Deployed Engineer) as a key bridge between technology and real-world applications, SIXUNITED is further strengthening its organizational capabilities for AI-driven industry implementation, thereby building a new support system to propel the company’s “All in AI” strategy into deeper execution.

SIXUNITED FDE Academy was officially established and held its inaugural opening ceremony.

The inaugural training camp of SIXUNITED has also received high recognition and strong support from AMD. Attending the opening ceremony were曹亚联, Chairman of SIXUNITED; 纪朝晖, Vice President of Marketing for Greater China at AMD; 高翔, Senior Director of GPU Business Development at AMD; 丁展, General Manager of the Sales Center at SIXUNITED; 张晓军, Deputy General Manager of the R&D Center at SIXUNITED; 滕翔, Director of AI Products at SIXUNITED; industry expert 段云龙; as well as more than ten technical support instructors.

Ji Chaohui, Vice President of Marketing, Greater China, AMD

Gao Xiang, Senior Director of GPU Business Development, AMD Greater China

Industry Expert Duan Yunlong

Industry inflection point: the focus of AI competition is shifting to real-world deployment.

At present, the AI industry continues to advance in model development, computing power, and ecosystem building. However, translating technical capabilities into real-world business applications still faces a host of practical challenges, including demand interpretation, scenario adaptation, and solution delivery. In particular, in industry‑specific use cases, customer needs are often far from standardized technical requirements; only by deeply understanding both the business context and the capabilities of AI technologies can truly tailored solutions be identified.

The successful implementation of AI requires a team that can bridge technology and business—understanding customers’ real needs while leveraging hardware, software, and ecosystem resources to design, assemble, and validate solutions tailored to specific projects.

SIXUNITED positions FDE as the frontline extension and a key implementation lever of its second growth curve. All innovations on the second growth curve must be validated, integrated, and further refined through frontline execution.

Cao Yalian, Chairman of SIXUNITED, stated that the traditional ODM hardware business is facing challenges such as shrinking growth prospects, and SIXUNITED is actively expanding new avenues for growth. Edge-side AI, on-device intelligent agents, and industry-specific solution delivery have become the company’s key strategic priorities, with FDE playing a crucial role in bringing this strategy to the front lines.

Cao Yalian, Chairman of SIXUNITED

The second growth curve requires new organizational capabilities.

SIXUNITED’s second growth curve does not involve abandoning its existing business to seek a new direction; rather, it is a further extension built upon its mature hardware, supply chain, customer base, and localized service capabilities.

Edge AI, on-device intelligent agents, and industry‑specific solution delivery are key components of this strategic direction. As AI capabilities are deployed in real‑world business scenarios, the value that enterprises deliver will increasingly extend beyond hardware products to encompass edge inference, AI‑agent applications, and domain‑specific services.

In this process, the ISV ecosystem provides models, software, and application capabilities, while hardware supplies the computational foundation. FDE further bridges these capabilities with customer needs, recombining diverse resources to facilitate solution validation and delivery. Internally, SIXUNITED summarizes this process as “realigning existing products, customers, and resources to new scenarios and ecosystems,” thereby driving innovation for its second growth curve.

As the business direction shifts, the sales model must be adjusted accordingly. Ding Zhan, General Manager of the Sales Center, proposed that going forward, sales should progressively evolve from purely hardware transactions to delivering end-to-end solutions and value, with front‑end sales teams and FDEs working together to integrate AI solutions into customers’ real‑world use cases.

Ding Zhan, General Manager of the SIXUNITED Sales Center

Establish a replicable, on-the-ground implementation system through FDE Academy.

AI projects are highly scenario-specific, and relying solely on individual experience to tackle each project makes it difficult to develop sustainable, replicable capabilities. SIXUNITED has established the FDE Academy, gradually transforming FDE from a specific role into a set of replicable organizational competencies.

Zhang Xiaojun, Deputy General Manager of the SIXUNITED R&D Center

Teng Xiang, Director of AI Products at SIXUNITED

The inaugural training camp brought together more than 20 participants from diverse roles, including sales, R&D, after-sales service, quality assurance, supply chain, operations, IT, and engineering. This cross‑departmental composition enables stakeholders across different business functions to collaboratively engage in understanding and implementing AI use cases, while also laying the groundwork for establishing a unified FDE methodology, processes, and evaluation framework going forward.

This training camp integrates methodological learning with real-world case studies, following a curriculum structure of 30% theory, 30% workshops, and 40% hands-on practice. Building on a solid grasp of the FDE standard process, tools, and delivery skills, participants will engage in project-based exercises addressing actual business pain points and validate their learnings through a final成果 presentation.

During the training, participants will develop and demonstrate real-world use cases on the SIXUNITED Mini PC powered by the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 processor, bringing edge AI capabilities directly into practical application.

FDE needs to bridge the “last mile” of AI solution implementation, ensuring that AI capabilities are seamlessly integrated into business workflows and continuously refined through real-world deployment.

From seed-stage capabilities to a comprehensive global FDE ecosystem

The first cohort of over 20 trainees marks the starting point for SIXUNITED’s FDE system development. Building on this inaugural training camp, SIXUNITED will continuously refine its curriculum, processes, case studies, and evaluation mechanisms, ensuring that real-world project experience continually feeds back into the FDE framework. Through ongoing training and hands-on practice, the company will gradually build scalable FDE capabilities and, in the long term, establish a professional delivery team of more than 1,000 members.

In the next phase, FDE will further penetrate global markets and industry scenarios, validate its solutions through benchmark projects, and then gradually replicate mature solutions and delivery expertise. SIXUNITED plans to launch 30–50 active FDEs and FDE projects worldwide, while also assigning FDE greater responsibility for AI solution implementation and certain front-end business functions.

The goal of building the FDE system is not merely to expand the workforce; it is to establish a comprehensive framework that encompasses demand identification, ecosystem collaboration, solution validation, project delivery, and knowledge accumulation.

Only when project experience is distilled into standardized methodologies and replicated across more industries and clients can FDE serve as the organizational backbone for sustaining its second growth curve.

Execution capability is an enterprise’s intrinsic competitive advantage.

The pace of technological iteration in the AI industry is accelerating, with models, chips, software, and hardware platforms undergoing continuous evolution. For enterprises, understanding customer needs, adapting to specific use cases, and translating technical capabilities into deliverable solutions require sustained practice and organizational expertise.

Based on its mature hardware and supply-chain capabilities, supported by its AI and ISV ecosystem, and further leveraging FDE to penetrate real-world business scenarios, SIXUNITED is continuously refining the end-to-end pipeline that bridges AI technology provision with industrial implementation.

FDE Academy is merely the starting point for building this system. As benchmark projects continue to be implemented, methodologies are steadily refined, and the organization expands in scale, SIXUNITED will transform the insights gained from frontline scenarios into replicable solution capabilities, enabling AI to penetrate more industries and business contexts, while providing sustained growth momentum for the company’s second growth curve.