■ Park meets orchid boom
Growing demand for orchids in Europe is contributing to Taiwan's booming orchid industry, with a biotech park in Tainan County devoted to orchid research and development already fully booked after the completion of the project's first stage. Lee Tsang-yu (李蒼裕), deputy director of the orchid biotech park -- the Taiwan Orchid Plantation -- told reporters yesterday that demand for orchids in Europe is expected to increase from last year's 30 million to 50 million this year, mostly thanks to promotional efforts by floriculturists in the Netherlands. It is estimated that the park's total orchid sales could reach NT$400 million (US$12.58 million) a year, accounting for one-third of Taiwan's orchid exports. Orchid exports account for 50 percent of the total value of Taiwan's flower exports.
■ Debt mechanism doing well
The nation's consumer debt negotiation mechanism had received 153,198 applications as of May 12, including 130,500 successfully negotiated cases that represent NT$200.8 billion (US$6.31 billion) worth of bad debt, the Financial Supervisory Commission said yesterday. "We have seen a deceleration in the number of applications, which could indicate that the issue of consumer bad loans is now under control," commission spokeswoman Susan Chang (張秀蓮) said. The negotiation system was initiated at the beginning of this year, with the aim of bailing out around 500,000 indebted credit and cash cardholders while sorting out consumer bad loans estimated to exceed NT$200 billion.
■ HannStar does patent deal
HannStar Display Corp (瀚宇彩晶), a leading liquid-crystal-display (LCD) panel maker, has obtained the right to make better quality panels using patents owned by Honeywell International Inc, making it the third Taiwanese LCD panel maker to use Honeywell patents, following AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) and Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子). By signing the agreement, HannStar aims to maintain its LCD panel manufacturing position and avoid disputes over intellectual property rights, the company said in a statement released yesterday. Honeywell's patented technology increases the brightness of images and reduces interference of moire effects, it added.
■ Taiwan to lead iPod sector
Taiwanese and Chinese manufacturers are set to produce more than US$104 million worth of Apple's iPod digital music players and related audio accessories this year, a study said yesterday. The figure will represent an increase of 37 percent from last year, according to Global Sources Ltd, a US-based business-to-business media company which carried out the survey. The report forecast that Taiwan's production will make up the bulk of production value at US$71 million, while the remaining US$33 million will be generated by their Chinese counterparts.
■ NT falls against the greenback
The New Taiwan dollar shed markedly by NT$0.172 to close at NT$31.82 against the greenback yesterday on the Taipei foreign exchange market because of a rebounding US dollar and heavy selling of the local currency by foreign investors. A moderately rising Chinese yuan has little impact on the NT dollar as long as the local currency hovers around NT$31.5 and NT$33.5 to the US dollar, Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers' Association (電電公會) chairman Rock Hsu (許勝雄) said yesterday. Hsu made the remarks on Monday after the yuan climbed beyond 8 to the US dollar for the first time in 12 years.
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