47 Taiwan Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association For sports-goods companies facing rapid product cycles and high customization demands, RAG bridges human expertise and machine scalability. It ensures that AI-generated insights remain verifiable, traceable, and aligned with domain-specific standards (OECD/BCG/INSEAD, 2025). Ultimately, RAG signals a shift from data abundance to knowledge resilience—a foundation for the next generation of intelligent manufacturing. 4. Edge AI: Intelligence at the Operational Frontier As AI models grow in capability, a parallel revolution is happening at the edge: on-site devices and embedded processors that bring intelligence directly to factories, stores, and even sports venues. Edge AI allows data to be processed locally, reducing latency, improving privacy, and enabling real-time decision-making (WEF, 2024b). For sporting-goods manufacturing, this means quality control systems capable of detecting micro-defects in stitching or surface coating within milliseconds, without relying on cloud inference. In retail environments, AI cameras monitor crowd movement and heat maps to optimize staff allocation, prevent theft, and even trigger automated safety alerts. The same principle extends to sports training. Smart wearables equipped with edge AI chips analyze motion in real time, providing athletes with instant feedback without sending sensitive data to remote servers. These capabilities redefine the concept of “smart equipment”—not as devices that merely record, but as systems that understand and respond. From a sustainability perspective, edge AI also reduces the energy footprint associated with cloud computing, aligning technological innovation with ESG goals (WEF, 2024c). For an industry balancing between digital transformation and ecological responsibility, this alignment is more than a bonus—it is a survival strategy. 5. ESG and the New Imperative of Sustainable Intelligence Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) principles are no longer optional—they are rapidly becoming the governing logic of industrial competitiveness. AI is emerging as both a catalyst and a
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