The NUC is dead, long live the NUC!
The NUC created by Intel is dead, but the form factor certainly isn’t. There are plenty of NUC clones from a variety of vendors, most of which are just as good as the original, but it seems only ASUS will be licensed to carry the NUC forward. Intel and ASUS have agreed that the latter will sell and support 10th to 13th generation NUC devices, as well as develop and sell new generations.
It’s possible that this deal could mean the NUC lineup expands to encompass more devices beyond the tiny PC we’re used to. ASUS is thought to be making DIY kits for similar devices, but could also move into DIY laptops. This would be very interesting as apart from Framework, white box laptops have all but disappeared. The idea that you might soon be able to buy a NUC-branded motherboard and processor sized for a laptop with which you can build a new system or upgrade an old one is pretty nice.
It could just be that deleting the NUC is the best thing that could have happened to it!
