BANKING
Citibank fined for data error
The Financial Supervisory Commission yesterday fined Citibank Taiwan Ltd (台灣花旗) NT$5 million (US$162,967) for a malfunction of its information system in January that caused incorrect account balances to be displayed, inconveniencing more than 10,000 clients. As it was the second time that Citibank Taiwan’s information system has had a major problem — following a logic error that allowed a cardholder to spend more than his credit limit, which resulted in a fine to the bank in November last year — the commission has ordered it to review the systems used by its local operations and at its regional headquarters in Singapore, Banking Bureau Deputy Director-General Huang Kuang-hsi (黃光熙) told a news conference in New Taipei City.
INNOVATION
SMEA launches start-up hub
The Small and Medium Enterprise Administration (SMEA) yesterday launched the Start-up Terrace, home to the nation’s innovative businesses in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口). Based in what was the athlete’s village for the 2017 Taipei Summer Universiade, the Start-up Terrace houses 132 international and local start-ups and accelerators specializing in various domains. It provides offices, housing, coworking spaces, an exhibition center and other facilities over 59,382m2, SMEA said. The site also provides financial and legal counseling services, as well as access to international mentors, as it aims to become one of the most important start-up hubs in Asia, it said.
REAL ESTATE
Yulon halts development
Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) yesterday said that its board of directors has approved suspending construction of a residential compound in New Taipei City’s Sindian District (新店), as well as reducing the scale of a commercial area in the project. However, it would continue a partnership with Eslite Bookstore (誠品) and Vieshow Cinemas (威秀影城) to develop the commercial area, it said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Yulon said that it could restart development of the residential compound depending on market conditions.
TELECOMS
Far EasTone to offer jobs
Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信) plans to offer about 100 positions in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖) at a job fair today organized by the Taipei City Government, the company said yesterday. About 40 percent of the job opportunities, including application engineers and cloud-related service developers, would be created to cope with a growing demand for information technology services, the company said. About 30 percent of the positions aim to tackle rising e-commerce business, with the remaining 30 percent for salespersons and retail channel analysts, Far EasTone said.
HEALTHCARE
FDA probing Ispect Biotech
Ispect Biotech Ltd (艾思博生物科技), which makes a plate and screw implant for broken bones, is under investigation for allegedly supplying hospitals with falsely certified products, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Wednesday. The firm is suspected of falsifying the serial numbers on its products, allegedly using the Good Manufacturing Practice serial numbers of other companies, FDA Director-General Wu Shou-mei (吳秀梅) said. From January to July, 80 hospitals had procured the uncertified implants, which were used on about 70,000 patients, Wu said.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to