■ TSMC board allows dividends
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufac-turing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world's largest supplier of made-to-order computer chips, said its board approved a cash dividend of NT$2.50 (US$0.77) a share and a 3 percent stock dividend. The board also approved NT$6.6 billion of capital spending for research and development this year and US$565.3 million to expand its 12-inch wafer capacity, it said in a statement. It also approved expenditure of US$120 million to expand its mask production capacity, it said. TSMC plans to hold a shareholders' meeting on May 16 to review the proposals, it said.
■ China Steel not for sale
China Steel Corp (中鋼) has rejected a takeover offer by Mittal Steel Co, the world's largest steelmaker, a spokesman for China Steel confirmed on Monday. The spokesman said Mittal Steel, which is based in Rotterdam, made the offer through an investment bank to purchase China Steel. However, China Steel rejected the bid because as Taiwan's largest steelmaker, it saw no need to merge with any foreign steel giant, he said. The spokesman said China Steel would keep a neutral stand on possible future moves by Mittal Steel to purchase the company's shares in the open market. He added if Mittal Steel decided to do so, "it would have to pay a considerable price."
■ NT dollar recovers
The New Taiwan dollar rose against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, gaining NT$0.074 to close at NT$32.30. A total of US$835 million changed hands during the day's trading.
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