■ Airlines
New firms join Star Alliance
The world's largest airline grouping, Star Alliance, grew to 18 members on Saturday after inducting three new carriers, including the first from Africa, officials said. The new members -- South African Airways, Finland's Blue1 and TAP Air Portugal -- join a group that already includes Singapore Airlines, United Airlines and Thai Airways. The new members will join as early as next year and increase Star's market share of global air travel to 28.8 percent, Star Alliance chief executive Jaan Albrecht said. United Airlines' president and chief executive officer Glen Tilton said the alliance could in time expand its market to as much as 35 percent, and possibly more. Blue1, which is a unit of Scandinavian airline SAS, is the first regional airline to join Star, while South African Airways is the first from Africa.
■ Budgets
D-Day festival has hefty bill
The anniversary events for the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings, involving spectacular displays and heavy security, have left the French government and local authorities with a bill of some 44 million euros (US$54 million). The defense ministry, which looks after the interests of war veterans, is spending some 26 million euros on a program of commemorations that kick off this weekend -- 60 years after Allied troops landed in Normandy. Overall, government ministries are spending at least 36 million euros on the anniversary events, while local authorities are shelling out 8 million euros. Local authorities have had to fork out 3.3 million euros on repairing and improving roads around some of the most important sites, such as the British cemetery in Bayeux and the Pegasus Bridge.
■ Internet
New cybercafes suspended
China has suspended registration of new Internet cafes and profit-seeking song and dance halls, state press reported. The official Xinhua news agency said the measure announced in a circular by the General Administration for Industry and Commerce recently aimed to create a "good environment for minors." China has already closed 16,000 Internet cafes in the past three months, as a campaign to protect its 367 million children and adolescents from corrosive influences picked up steam. The latest circular called for a crackdown on unregistered Internet bars, forbidding the establishment of such bars and song and dance halls within 200m around primary and middle schools. Most of those using the Internet cafes tend to play electronic games. A month ago, Xinhua said a total of 8,600 unlicensed Internet cafes had been shut down since February.
■ Tourism
Vietnam arrivals soar
International arrivals to Vietnam soared 115.4 percent in the first five months of the year compared with the same period last year, state media said yesterday. Some 1.115 million foreigners visited the country during the five-month period, with Chinese, American and South Korean visitors leading the charge, the ruling Communist Party's Nhan Dan newspaper said. The number of visitors from Japan increased 25 percent compared to the same period last year following Vietnam's decision to grant visa-free entry to Japanese nationals staying for 15 days or less from January. The total number of visitors during this period marks a shift from the first quarter of the year, when arrivals only grew 4.3 percent year-on-year as a result of the Southeast Asian nation's bird flu crisis. Vietnam has set itself a target of attracting 2.8 million visitors this year.
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