More than 600 participants, including senior executives from IT giants IBM, Intel, Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft, have signed up for the three-day Asian-Oceanian Computing Industry Organization summit.

"This will be the biggest summit in the history of ASOCIO. Our success in terms of participation is beyond our expectations," Truong Gia Binh, head of the conference's organizing board, said earlier this week.

The summit's inaugural session will take place Friday with a series of government and industry experts from the region set to deliver key-note addresses.

Established in 1984, ASOCIO's mandate is to promote trade between its 19 member states and develop the computing industry within the region.

The grouping is made up of Australia, Bangladesh, Japan, India, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam.

The United States, Britain, Canada, France and Spain have observer status.

ASOCIO has over 10,000 companies affiliated to it.

SPACE.WIRE