■ Rules eased on derivatives
The central bank said it eased rules on foreign-exchange derivative trading by banks as part of the nation's effort to open its financial markets. Lenders will no longer need central bank approval to trade the instruments. For New Taiwan dollar-related derivatives, banks are still required to get permission before doing any trades, said George Chou (周阿定), the bank's foreign-exchange chief. The bank will consider easing trading rules for local-currency derivatives in the future, he said.
■ Credit coop auction set
The Central Deposit Insurance Corp (中央存保) yesterday said that it will auction off the debt-ridden Fengshan Credit Cooperative (鳳山信合社) on July 5. Banks with a minimum NT$70 billion in assets, a minimum NT$6 billion in net worth and an over 8 percent capital-adequacy-ratio (BIS ratio) will be allowed to submit their applications to participate in the auction before June 28.
■ China Motor raises forecast
China Motor Corp (中華汽車) yesterday raised its earnings forecast for this year to about NT$7 billion, up 16.7 percent from previous estimate of NT$6 billion. The revised after-tax earnings per share will rise to NT$5.05, the company said in a statement. It said it exceeded its original projection for the first three months of the year by earning NT$1.95 billion.
■ NT dollar up
The New Taiwan dollar yesterday turned strong against its US counterpart, rising NT$0.058 to close at NT$33.561 on the Taipei foreign exchange market.
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