April 14, 2020 / Ralph Jennings, Contributor
As the coronavirus continues to spread around the world, Taiwan’s top manufacturer and a Vietnamese conglomerate have joined the fight against COVID-19 by making ventilators.
Foxconn Technology Group of Taiwan, the world’s largest contract assembler of electronics (including iPhones and iPads for Apple), and Vingroup, a Vietnamese conglomerate with businesses in property, resorts, retail and mobile phones, among others, are working with New York-listed ventilator developer Medtronic to make the lifesaving medical devices.
Medtronic said on April 8 it intends to share product designs of its ventilators on an open source basis with Foxconn and Vingroup, as well as Canada’s Baylis Medical. Medtronic intends to raise ventilator production by five times current loads. “These manufacturers are working to advance Medtronic’s global priority—to increase ventilator production across the globe,” the company said in a statement.
