Shanghai factories were urged by city authorities to stagger working hours and rest days as the government seeks to avoid summer blackouts similar to those that forced companies to cut production two years ago.
From July 1 to Aug. 31, some factories will have to operate at night to reduce power consumption during peak hours, the Shanghai government said in a statement on Friday on its Web site. Some factories will be asked to stagger rest days through Sept. 23, while some companies must give employees some time off from July 10 to Aug. 28, the statement said.
The government also plans to adjust electricity rates based on whether power is used during peak or off-peak periods. Peak power demand in Shanghai reached a high of 16.9 million kilowatts on Thursday, the statement said.
China is experiencing a fourth straight year of power shortages because economic growth has pushed demand for power beyond generating capacity. The country had a shortfall of 25,000 megawatts when usage peaked last summer. The deficit may be less than 10,000 megawatts this year, the National Development and Reform Commission, the nation's top economic planner, said in March.
Shanghai, China's biggest commercial city, may face a peak power demand of 20.5 million kilowatts this summer, 1.5 million kilowatts higher than a year earlier, the city government said in February.
Other measures include halting outdoor construction when temperatures rise above 35?C, the statement said.
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day