■ Small gain seen for chipmakers
Taiwan's chip companies are expected to see an 8.8 percent increase in sales to NT$264.3 billion (US$8.56 billion) in the current quarter from a year ago, the Taiwan Semiconductor Industry Association's (TSIA, 台灣半導體協會) said in a report released yesterday. The association attributed the smaller increase in chipmakers' sales to easing inventory pressure on their customers and resilient consumer electronic products, according to the report. That will be a slight reduction from last quarter's NT$282.1 billion, according to the TSIA's latest statistics. The TSIA said the first quarter should be the worst period for contract chipmakers in terms of factory usage due to customers' trying to digest their inventories. "Factory utilization should start to pick up in the second quarter," the TSIA said. Memory chipmakers should expect a small sales increase in the current quarter due to falling prices, it said. For the full year, the local chip industry is expected to have a 6.7 percent expansion to NT$1.17 trillion from NT$1.01 trillion last year.
■ China Steel to boost dividend
China Steel Corp (中鋼) plans to increase its dividend and annual bonuses to employees this year after posting higher profit, a Chinese-language newspaper reported yesterday, without saying where it obtained the information. China Steel plans to give 5 percent of its profit to its employees as bonus, up from 3 percent last year, the paper said. It plans to pay a dividend of NT$4.40 per share based on last year's earnings, up from NT$3.35 last year, it said. China Steel will hold a board meeting today to discuss the proposals, the paper said. The firm reported a profit for last year of NT$51.6 billion on Jan. 28, up from NT$37 billion in 2003.
■ Overseas sale of shares mulled
The government may agree to sell a 1.4 billion share stake in Chang Hwa Commercial Bank (彰化銀行) overseas next month, a Chinese-language business daily said, citing a report to the government by the bank's management. Chang Hwa's per share value is in the range of NT$16 to NT$15, less than Tuesday's closing price of NT$20.40, the paper said. The stake, based on Tuesday's closing price, would be worth NT$28.6 billion (US$922.6 million) and would account for 29 percent of the outstanding shares.
■ Quanta to diversify
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦), the world's biggest maker of notebook computers, plans to start producing auto electronics products to diversify its range, said president Michael Wang (王震華). The company is following Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and Asustek Computer Inc (華碩電腦) in expanding its product line. Quanta, which is starting to produce flat-panel televisions, may start selling the automotive products under its brand name.
■ Better Spanish trade ties sought
The government has listed Spain as one of its key trade targets with efforts being made to boost Taiwan-Spain economic and trade relations. Walter Yeh (葉明水), vice president of the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA, 外貿協會), was scheduled to sign a pact with Jose Maria Isardo, the general-director of the Madrid Chamber of Commerce, at the chamber's Madrid headquarters to boost the council's cooperative relations with the Spanish business group, an economics official at the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Madrid said on Tuesday. TAITRA has also decided to open a branch office in Barcelona to promote Taiwan-Spain trade and investment relations, according to the agency.
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
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
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