To enhance profitability in a rapidly changing chip market, UMC focuses on production of specialized semiconductors, which have higher value but also greater process complexity. UMC’s largest production and R&D site in Tainan adopted agile strategies to deploy over 48 4IR use cases, such as a machine learning model to shorten design kit delivery time by 57% and an AI defect analysis system helping raise yields to 97%. This led to higher customer engagement with specialized product ratio up to 53% from 13%, contributing to a 75% gross margin gain.