■ Trading sluggish ahead of polls
Shares closed little changed yesterday following Wall Street's losses overnight and with trade cautious ahead of key weekend mayoral elections, dealers said.
The TAIEX slipped 6.81 points at 7,686.52, on turnover of NT$120.37 billion (US$3.71 billion).
Decliners outpaced gainers 717 to 499, with 196 stocks unchanged.
The New Taiwan dollar ended NT$0.003 lower at NT$32.3 against the US dollar on the Taipei Forex Inc.
■ ECCT elects officers
The European Chamber of Com-merce Taipei (ECCT) announced yesterday that Ralf Scheller will serve as chairman of the ECCT board of directors next year for the second consecutive year.
Scheller is the managing director of TUV Rheinland Taiwan Ltd.
In a statement, ECCT said that Peter Albrich, president and CEO of Siemens Ltd Taiwan, was also re-elected vice chairman, and Philipppe Pellegrin, senior country officer of Calyon Taipei Branch, was elected treasurer.
■ Sanyo fined over ad
Home appliance maker Sanyo Electric Co (三洋電機) was fined NT$750,000 (US$23,220) by the Fair Trade Commission yesterday for fraudulent advertising.
The commission said that Sanyo ran advertisements in newspapers in April last year claiming that one of its air-conditioner models could save consumers up to 59 percent in energy bills.
However, the Bureau of Standards, Metrology and Inspection said Sanyo's tests did not fall in line with national standards and the figures the firm offered were not representative.
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
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
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],”