Panama will take bids from four international consortiums seeking to build new, larger ship locks for the Panama Canal, government officials said on Friday.
The locks are a key part of the US$5.25 billion canal expansion project that began in September, aimed at doubling the capacity of the 80km canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Panamanian officials hope the project will be finished by 2014.
The four consortiums have until next August to present final proposals and price tags to compete for the contract, said Alberto Aleman, head of the Panama Canal Authority.
The bidders are:
* The CANAL consortium, which includes the Spanish companies ACS Servicios, Acciona Infraestructuras and Sner Engineering of Spain, as well as the Germany-based Hochtief Construction, ICA of Mexico and Royal Haskoning of the Netherlands.
* Atlantic-Pacific of Panama, which includes Bouygues Construction, VINCI Construction and Alstom of France, Bilfinger Berger of Germany, the US-based AECOM and four Brazilian firms.
* A consortium that includes the US-based Bechtel, and Taisei and Mitsubishi of Japan.
* The "United Group for the Canal," which includes Panama's Constructora Urbana, US-based companies Tetra Tech, Montgomery Watson Harza and Heerema Group, and companies from the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Belgium.
The canal was built between 1904 and 1914 by the US, which handed control over to Panama in December 1999.
The largest ships that now use the canal carry up to 5,000 containers, but after the expansion supertankers and ships carrying as many as 12,000 containers will be able to sail the canal.
Some 14,000 ships, comprising about 5 percent of annual world commerce, pass through the Central American shortcut to avoid going around Cape Horn.
Panama's government says the work would be financed by a hike in tolls, worth US$1.2 billion.
Intel Corp yesterday reinforced its determination to strengthen its partnerships with Taiwan’s ecosystem partners including original-electronic-manufacturing (OEM) companies such as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and chipmaker United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電). “Tonight marks a new beginning. We renew our new partnership with Taiwan ecosystem,” Intel new chief executive officer Tan Lip-bu (陳立武) said at a dinner with representatives from the company’s local partners, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the US chip giant’s presence in Taiwan. Tan took the reins at Intel six weeks ago aiming to reform the chipmaker and revive its past glory. This is the first time Tan
Qualcomm Inc is strengthening its partnerships with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and original design manufacturers (ODMs) in Taiwan as it expands its presence in the artificial intelligence (AI) computer market, CEO Cristiano Amon said in Taipei yesterday ahead of the annual Computex trade show. “Historically we’ve always been a very big customer of TSMC, and we continue to be,” Amon said during a media Q&A session. “For chip manufacturing, we’re among the largest fabless [semiconductor designers],” he said, noting that Qualcomm, a leading provider of mobile and AI-enabled chipsets, ships about 40 billion components every year, with TSMC being
‘FAILED EXPORT CONTROLS’: Jensen Huang said that Washington should maximize the speed of AI diffusion, because not doing so would give competitors an advantage Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) yesterday criticized the US government’s restrictions on exports of artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China, saying that the policy was a failure and would only spur China to accelerate AI development. The export controls gave China the spirit, motivation and government support to accelerate AI development, Huang told reporters at the Computex trade show in Taipei. The competition in China is already intense, given its strong software capabilities, extensive technology ecosystems and work efficiency, he said. “All in all, the export controls were a failure. The facts would suggest it,” he said. “The US
NEW PRODUCTS: MediaTek has been diversifying its product lines to minimize operational risks as mobile chips remain the company’s biggest revenue source MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest supplier of smartphone chips, yesterday said the tape-out process for its first 2-nanometer chip would take place in September, paving the way for volume production of its most advanced chip, likely to be its next-generation flagship smartphone chip, around the year-end at the earliest. MediaTek has been leveraging advanced process technologies from its foundry partner, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), to build its flagship mobile phone chips, a segment it once relinquished and then recovered four years ago as it released its Dimensity series. In the semiconductor industry, a tape-out refers to the
RSS