■ Powerchip's rating upgraded
Powerchip Semiconductor Corp (力晶), Taiwan's largest memory-chip maker, was upgraded to "outperform" from "neutral" by Credit Suisse First Boston analyst Wang Wanli (王萬里).
"Powerchip is our favorite company at the downturn of the cycle," Wang said yesterday. He said he expects Powerchip to make a profit in the first half of next year, when supply of memory chips will exceed demand. However, Wang cut his target price for Powerchip to NT$24 from NT$28.
Wang also cut his target price for Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技), Taiwan's second-largest memory-chip maker, to NT$22.8 from NT$32, but didn't change his "outperform" rating on the stock.
■ More part-time jobs on offer
A total of 25,000 temporary part-time positions were available online as of the start of the month, up 40 percent from a year ago, the 104 Job Bank said yesterday.
The online service provider said a computer show set to open today will require a large number of temporary salespeople. Most of these positions offer an hourly wage of NT$85 to NT$100.
The industries in which most part-time positions are available are restaurants (18 percent), schools and educational institutions (14.8 percent), and retail (13 percent), it said.
■ NT dollar gains ground
The New Taiwan dollar gained ground against its US counterpart yesterday, rising NT$0.033 to close at NT$33.530 on the Taipei foreign-exchange market. Turnover was US$898 million.
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