■ Tax take rises
The treasury took in NT$147.1 billion (US$4.39 billion) worth of taxes last month, an 8.2 percent rise from a year ago, mainly driven by an increase in income tax, the Finance Ministry said yesterday. Income tax revenues last month totaled NT$21.4 billion, up 29.6 percent from last year, while revenues from securities transactions tax rose 12 percent to NT$6 billion last month, it said in a statement. Revenues from commodity tax dropped 7.1 percent to NT$12.3 billion as the Cabinet announced it will slash commodity taxes on gasoline, diesel and fuel oil to hold down inflationary pressure. For the first 11 months of the year, tax revenues hit NT$1.48 trillion, up 14.1 percent from the same period last year, the ministry said.
■ High-tech all in China
Eight out of the nation's top 20 corporations have investments in China, according to a business survey published yesterday. Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海) topped the list as the largest conglomerate maintaining the biggest Taiwan-invested company in China, according to the survey jointly conducted by the Chinese-language Commercial Times and China Credit Information Service. Hon Hai is followed by seven other companies that are also among the top 20 firms in Taiwan and the top 20 Taiwanese firms in China. They are: Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶), AU Optronics Corp (友達), BenQ Corp (明基), Inventec Inc (英業達), Acer Inc and Chunghwa Picture Tubes (華映).
All eight top-ranking Taiwanese companies are involved in the high-technology business, the poll found.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is