■ Quanta expanding operations
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦), the world's largest contract notebook computer maker, will invest US$27.80 million to expand its Shanghai operations, a company spokeswoman said yesterday. Quanta will assign US$18.3 million to raise the paid-in capital of its wholly owned subsidiary Tech-Yeh (Shanghai) Computer Co (上海達業電腦) and use the remaining US$9.5 million to build a warehousing company, the spokeswoman said. The spokeswoman said that the warehousing company is scheduled to begin operations in the second half of this year. Quanta has already invested US$124.82 million in China. Tech-Yeh, currently capitalized at US$35 million, produces notebook computers, computer peripheral products and cell phone sets. Quanta has shifted all of its production lines to China while keeping its research and development staff in Taiwan.
■ Chi Mei signs patent agreement
Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子), Taiwan's second-biggest maker of flat-panel displays used in computers and televisions, said it has signed a patent agreement with Thomson Licensing Inc on LCD monitors. The agreement licenses all of Thomson's LCD monitor-related patents to the Taiwanese company, according to the statement. Thomson Licensing is the licensing arm of Thomson group, which had earlier acquired US company RCA and the consumer electronics business of General Electric Corp. Chi Mei said in the statement the patent licenses are aimed at its business expansion, technology enhancement and serving customer interests. The new licenses were secured in addition to other licenses and cross-licenses that Chi Mei signed with Fujitsu, Honeywell, Hitachi, Guardian, and Sharp Corp for LCD technologies, the statement said.
■ Prospects good for new rice
The chances of a new variety of rice from Taiwan making inroads into the Japanese market are good, the Agricultural Research Institute under the Council of Agriculture said yesterday. Institute officials were referring to Yih Chuan Aromatic Rice, a variety named after Kuo Yih-chuan (郭益全), the head of the Rice Research Lab under the institute which has helped develop the rice. The officials noted that Japan produces 7.8 million tonnes of rice every year but annual consumption is 8.72 million tonnes, so nearly 1 million tons needs to be imported. To learn about the preferences of Japanese consumers, the institute introduced the rice during the Aichi Expo between March 25 and Sept. 25 last year, receiving a favorable response.
■ Orchid exports set to bloom
Orchid growers as well as other businesses in the orchid industry are expected to win export orders with a combined value of over NT$1 billion (US$30.8 million) during an upcoming international orchid show to be held in Tainan County, officials said yesterday. The 2006 Taiwan International Orchid Show is slated to take place at the Taiwan Orchid Plantation, from this Saturday to March 12. Some 300,000 orchids will be on display, according to the Tainan County Government, organizer of the event. Given that over 400 foreign buyers have registered to visit the fair, organizers said companies are expected to send more than 1,000 representatives to the event to seek trade deals.
■ NT dollar rises
The New Taiwan dollar gained against the US dollar on the Taipei Foreign Exchange yesterday, rising NT$0.037 to close at NT$32.455.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the