■ Quanta breaks ground for plant
Quanta Computer Group (廣達) yesterday launched a NT$100 billion (US$3 billion) investment project aimed at building a sixth-generation (6G) flat-panel plant, the company said. The project kicked off after a ground-breaking ceremony for a TFT-LCD (thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal displays) of Quanta Display (廣輝), a unit of the Quanta group, was held at the Lungtan high-tech industrial park in Taoyuan County. The 6G plant is slated to begin mass production in the third quarter of next year, with a monthly capacity of 90,000 panels. It will make flat panels measuring 1,500mm by 1,850mm with the investment geared mainly toward the robust growth expected in LCD television sales.
■ Dog food deemed safe
The Council of Agriculture yesterday released its inspection of nine items of dry and canned dog food under the brands Pedigree, Fwu-sow (福壽) and Nature's Recipe (耐吉斯) following the deaths of dozens of dogs due to kidney failure two weeks ago. The deaths were seen as being related to pet food. The council said in a statement that it did not find any discrepancy between the contents of the dog food and what was indicated on the packaging. The council asked the National Taiwan University Veterinary Hospital to help investigate the cause of the dogs' deaths. "We cannot determine when the result of the cause of death will come out as this requires case collection and autopsies of dogs' bodies, which may take a lot of time," said a council official who asked to remain anonymous.
■ Chunghwa Telecom awarded
Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信) has been granted two awards for last year by leading Asian financial publications, the company said in a statement yesterday. The state-run company was chosen "Best ADR, Best Privatization and A Leader in Corporate Governance" by Asset magazine. It also received a "Best Secondary Offering" award from FinanceAsia magazine, the statement said. The company successfully listed its ADR (American depositary receipt) on the New York Stock Exchange in July last year for a total offering of US$1.58 billion.
■ MassMutual buys stake
MassMutual Financial Group, the eighth-largest US life insurer by premiums, said it bought 68 percent of Fuh Hwa Investment Trust Co (復華投信) from Ruentex Group (潤泰集團) to tap the country's mutual-fund market. Terms of the transaction weren't disclosed in a statement from MassMutual, which is based in Springfield, Massachusetts. Fuh Hwa, the sixth-largest mutual-fund company in the county, more than doubled its managed assets during the past three years to US$4.1 billion from US$1.6 billion in 2000. MassMutual said it will keep management and key employees. Ruentex is in businesses including textiles and construction.
■ Foreign capital enters bourse
The accumulated amount of foreign capital channeled into the Taiwan Stock Exchange had reached around US$72.6 billion as of the end of last month, in comparison with US$70.4 billion recorded in January, the Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) announced yesterday. Foreign investors channeled US$4.1 billion into the Taiwan bourse in January and US$2.2 billion last month, showing a slowdown in foreign investment, according to a SFC official.
■ NT dollar strengthens
The New Taiwan dollar rose against its US counterpart, advancing NT$0.035 to close at NT$33.342 on the Taipei foreign exchange market. Turnover was US$766 million.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”