■ Real Estate
Mortgage subsidies offered
Taiwan plans to offer an additional NT$300 billion (US$9 billion) of subsidized mortgages to homebuyers to boost the island's property market, a Chinese-language newspaper reported, citing unidentified government officials. Taiwan may announce the package in late May or June. The plan would give homebuyers access to loans that carry an interest rate of about 2.3 percent, the report said. Taiwan's government has provided NT$1.2 trillion of subsidized loans since 2000, the report said. The government's previous loan package of NT$280 billion will be used up in June, the report said.
■ Spaceflight
Company gets rocket license
A California company received the second federal license ever issued to fly a manned rocket on suborbital flights. The Federal Aviation Administration granted XCor Aerospace Inc the license Friday for its Sphinx, a rocket-powered plane still on the drawing board. The license covers up to 35 flights of the yet-to-be-built plane, which should test operation and propulsion concepts for an even later craft that could ferry paying passengers on suborbital flights, according to the FAA. The license is good through 2006. Company chief executive officer Jeff Greason said the license would allow the company to attract investors to the US$2.5 million to US$3 million project. The concept plane could be flying within a year, he said. The two-person, reusable rocket plane is not being designed to fly to space, nor is it intended to be a competitor for the X Prize, he added. The US$10 million, privately funded X Prize will go to the first private effort to launch a manned craft to an altitude of 101km -- generally considered the edge of space -- twice within two weeks.
■ Tourism
Malaysia sees recovery
Malaysia said yesterday it was confident the number of tourists visiting it this year would climb back to the 2002 level of 13.3 million after dropping last year because of SARS and the Iraq war. "In the first three months of this year, Malaysia recorded over 3.9 million tourist arrivals, a growth of 38.4 percent compared to the same period in 2003," Malaysia Tourism Promotion Board director general Abdullah Jonid said. "If this trend continues, we are on our way to achieve the 2002 figures," he was quoted as saying by the Bernama news agency. Last year arrivals dipped to 10.5 million from 13.3 million in 2002 due to jitters over the Iraqi war and the deadly SARS outbreak in the region, he said. However, since January there has been a steady influx of visitors which could put the tourism sector -- the country's second largest foreign exchange earner -- back on track, he 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