Japanese industrial giant Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd said yesterday it has produced its first part for Boeing's 787 "Dreamliner," the next-generation jet set to take to the sky next year.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries said in a statement it completed its first, 30m long "wing box," the part which keeps wings attached, which will be flown to a Boeing plant in the US state of Washington for assembly.
Japanese companies are loyal customers of Boeing Co, which in turn has contracted Japanese heavy industrial firms to 35 percent of the construction of the next-generation, fuel-efficient jet.
Mitsubishi Heavy Industries said it was making wing boxes in central Aichi Prefecture out of an innovative composite material combining carbon fiber and reinforced plastic, which assists the plane's fuel efficiency.
Boeing has a full order book for the Dreamliner, enabling it to overtake European rival Airbus as the world's biggest aircraft maker.
Boeing plans to unveil the Dreamliner on July 8 with initial delivery on track for next May.
The Japanese participation in the Dreamliner project had led to allegations by the EU that Japan was indirectly subsidizing it.
Airbus has been in crisis because of delays in its major project to build the superjumbo A380.
Japanese companies Fuji Heavy Industries and Kawasaki Heavy Industries are also part of the deal signed in 2005 with Boeing.
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