The number of Internet users nationwide reached 14.76 million last year, an increase of 1.7 percent over the previous year, the Institute for Information Industry (III) said yesterday.
The institute based its estimate on a survey it conducted last August that found that 64.4 percent of Taiwan's population had access to the Internet, up 0.6 percentage points from the previous year.
Internet use is more common among residents in the north of the country than in other parts, the institute said.
Sixty-six percent of survey respondents in northern Taiwan said they use the Internet. In Taipei City, the figure jumped to 73.6 percent of residents, the institute said.
The majority, or 88.2 percent of users, said they usually surf the Internet at home, while 33.7 percent of users said they use the Web at the office, and 25.5 percent at schools, universities or research centers.
Less than 16 percent of the respondents said they used the Internet at cafes and other public places with Internet access.
Respondents who surf the Internet at home used the Web an average of 21.8 days per month, surfing on average 16 hours per week.
Forty-three percent of home Internet users were classified as "heavy users" who use the Web more than two hours per day, while 31.9 percent were "light users," online no more than one hour per day.
The survey, carried out between Aug. 4 and Aug. 23, was one part of a project to research trends in the use of broadband, mobile and wireless services last year.
A total of 2,751 households responded to the survey.
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