Cognex Acquires Suakit Developer Suara Lab
Deep Learning Machine Vision to Replace Manual Inspection in the Future


Cognex announced on the 17th that it has acquired SuaLab, a South Korean company that develops and sells deep learning machine vision software 'SuaKIT'.

With this, Cognex has acquired Suah Lab's entire organization, including its engineering team, and its intellectual property (IP). Further details regarding the acquisition will be announced during Cognex's third-quarter earnings call at 5 p.m. Eastern Time on the 28th.

Sualab was co-founded in 2013 by CEO Kiyoung Song. CEO Kiyoung Song will lead a team of deep learning engineers specializing in industrial machine vision at Cognex.

Song Ki-young, CEO and co-founder of Suah Lab, stated, “Becoming a global leader in deep learning machine vision solutions has been our goal since the company’s inception,” adding, “We achieved this by joining Cognex.”

Today, tens of thousands of people perform visual inspections to check for defects in electronic components and subsystems. Visual inspection is difficult, tedious, and prone to errors. In the future, visual inspection will be replaced by deep learning-based machine vision with higher reliability and lower cost.

Cognex Robert J. Willett (Robert J. President and CEO Willett stated, “Deep learning can perform inspections of irregular and non-standard defects in factories instead of human eyes,” adding, “The acquisition of Suah Lab will help Cognex respond to the deep learning-based machine vision market in Asia.”

Meanwhile, Cognex acquired ViDi Systems, a deep learning software company, in April 2017.