AI Cup challenges students to solve real-world challenges

Nearly 300 university students from around the globe competed in TE Connectivity’s sixth annual AI Cup, an event in which teams of aspiring engineers partner with their professional counterparts at TE to solve real technical challenges at the company’s factories. 

Fifty teams from 24 universities worldwide accepted the challenge this year at manufacturing sites across North America, Asia, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

At a pivotal moment for AI technology, the AI Cup at TE, a world leader in connectors and sensors, serves as a vital bridge between academic research and real-world industrial application. The teams, alongside their professors and TE advisors, developed advanced AI solutions that improve the quality inspection process, optimize data annotation costs, streamline a scheduling process and more.

"This year, the university students, professors, and TE advisors have demonstrated exceptional AI innovation and knowledge to develop applications that far exceeded our expectations. Their innovative applications have immense potential to reshape the future of manufacturing,” Lu said.

Some of the most successful projects from this year’s competition are being implemented in TE factories, including an automated labeling and inspection system designed for limited-sample environments. Through advanced algorithm optimization, the solution achieves a prediction accuracy of 98.8%, increases annotation efficiency by 100 times compared to manual methods, and reduces edge device energy consumption by 90%. Already deployed on one TE production line, this solution is expected to roll out across more than 50 of TE’s global manufacturing sites.

Another team created an AI-powered inspection solution tailored for electronic assembly processes that is 100 times faster than manual inspection, with a 99.2% accuracy rate. The system has been integrated into three production lines, with more than 100 TE manufacturing sites worldwide being considered for future deployment.

As a global industrial technology leader, TE has long made the promotion of STEM education a cornerstone of its corporate responsibility efforts. Since 2020, its STEM-focused philanthropic initiatives have impacted more than 5 million individuals worldwide, advancing toward its goal of reaching 10 million by 2030.