■ Supply growth slows
Taiwan's money supply growth slowed last month for the first time in five months as foreign investors withdrew capital from the country and people sent more funds abroad, the central bank said yesterday.
M2, the broadest measure of money supply, rose 6.35 percent from a year earlier after increasing 6.52 percent in August -- the first time growth has slowed since April. M1A, which tracks net currency in circulation plus checking accounts and passbook deposits, expanded 7.1 percent last month after increasing 7.8 percent in August, the bank said.
■ In-China production increases
More than 40 percent of Taiwanese export orders received last month will be produced on assembly lines overseas, mostly in China, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said. Of the US$23.78 billion-orders received last month, about 41 percent will be produced outside Taiwan, mostly in China. Last month's overseas production figure is a record high. It compares with 39.32 percent in August and 36.35 percent in September last year, according to the ministry.
■ Depositary sale postponed
China Development Financial Holding Corp (開發金控) postponed its planned US$280 million sale of global depositary receipts because of falling share prices, a Chinese-language newspaper reported, without saying where it obtained the information. China Development originally planned to start receiving applications for the sale on Monday, it said. The financial services company said on Aug. 30 it planned to sell as much as US$318 million of stock overseas in the form of global depositary receipts to fund expansion.
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