Is that the chip that makes pictures have more than 3 pixels?
Sorry. I just cropped from the picture asus had on their website
Wave soldering machine - they basically suspend the whole board above a vat of solder, it bonds anywhere it can. So if they don’t need that chip on this model, it’s getting solder anyway.
There are other empty spots without solder on them tho
Anywhere that’s not masked on the board will get solder. Anywhere.
Some IC’s are electrically or thermally bonded to the board, e.g. MOSFETS and other power handling components, which is certainly what would have gone in this spot. The part where the MOSFET’s heat spreader would touch the board is not masked, ergo it gets solder on it. Your other missing-chip spots definitely have solder on their connecting pads, where the pins for those chip(s) would go.
That’s just how it works. This is not unique to ASUS or any other manufacturer.
It’s not unusual for a board manufacturer to design a single board with a few different configurations of components, and simply not populate the ones that aren’t needed. Margins are super slim, after all, and they would not hesitate to omit a part that might only cost a fraction of a cent.
I can’t see from the picture what it is, but it could be some power related thing, and if the feature is not the board you wouldn’t need it’s power generator either.
