Unveiling Ceraluminum: ASUS’s game-changing material combining aluminium & ceramic

ASUS, the Taiwanese multinational computer company, has recently unveiled its flagship new material, Ceraluminum. This innovative substance, launched at the Computex conference in Taiwan, was the result of four years of development, which transformed aluminium into a high-tech ceramic.

Ceraluminum: How it's made

As per The Register, the synthesis of Ceraluminum involves submerging an aluminium sheet in hot water, followed by introducing a specialised ceramic element. This intricate method yields a textured appearance akin to pottery.

When an ASUS representative was asked if the process was similar to anodising, which bonds the material to metal surfaces, they acknowledged the similarity but noted that the Ceraluminumization process is a feat of intricate engineering. Currently, Ceraluminum has only been applied to the rear panel of the Zenbook 16's screen, an area prone to scratching based on the correspondent's experience travelling with laptops. The reason for its limited application was not provided.

Use of Ceraluminum in Zenbook S 16

ASUS introduced Ceraluminum in their latest laptop, the Zenbook S 16, during an event held on June 3. Currently, Ceraluminum has only been applied to the rear panel of the Zenbook 16's screen, an area prone to scratching based on the correspondent's experience travelling with laptops.

The Zenbook S 16 is powered by Ryzen AI 3000 CPUs, featuring a 50 TOPS NPU, which were also unveiled at Computex yesterday. Models equipped with the lower-end 9 365 CPU will cost $1,399 and come with 24GB of memory. Ceraluminum is not just a concept or marketing gimmick—the 16-inch Zenbook is available for order now, though delivery dates are still uncertain.

In addition to these laptops, ASUS announced the "ASUS ESC AI POD" at the event—a rack of servers in a configuration called the "GB200 NVL72." This setup includes 36 Nvidia Grace units, 72 Nvidia Blackwell Tensor Core GPUs, three 1 Gbps management switches, and a 200 Gbps data switch, all utilising 5th Gen Nvidia NVLink.