Analysts were mixed in their appraisal over the weekend National Economic Development Confer-ence (EDC), during which hundreds of officials and analysts gathered to forge a consensus on how to pull Taiwan out of its economic malaise.
"Problems cannot be solved through conferences," said Ma Kai (馬凱), an economist at Chung Hua Institute of Economic Research (CIER, 中經院). "But this at least shows that the government is determined to solve the problem."
At the weekend meeting, the government, after consistent criticism from the businessmen, agreed to finalize the adjustment of the "no haste, be patient" China policy in one month, a move which indicates that the government may actually do away with the controversial ban on investment in China.
Both President Chen Shui-bian (
"That will take greater out of greater China," says Bruce Richardson, head of regional bank research at Indosuez W.I. Carr in Taipei.
But Bert Lin (
The government's decision to finalize the relaxation of its ban on investing in China will herald a new chapter in Taiwanese relations with China, said one analyst who requested anonymous.
Not all are complaining.
"Economics will win over politics on the long-run," says head of research at a major Taipei brokerage. "With this new flexibility over China, they are moving in the right direction."
Some say the government's decision to act upon the financial issues shows that the DPP government has taken up the challenge to restructure the financial system. "We are seeing that they are going to solve the problems in the banking system," says Richardson of Indosuez. "That is more than what the KMT government did."
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