Hewlett-Packard Taiwan Ltd (惠普科技) yesterday unveiled eight models of HP ProLiant quad-core servers with built-in Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD, 美商超微半導體) Opteron processors. HP said it expected their sales to exceed those of dual-core servers this year.
“With the release of eight models today, HP wanted to send the message to x86 supporters that the quad-core era has come, and HP is ready,” Terence Liao (廖仁祥), general manager of HP’s technology solutions group, told a press conference.
Liao said dual-core servers accounted for 90 percent of HP’s server sales last year, while quad-core only accounted for 10 percent. But he predicted that quad-core would likely see a growth of more than 50 percent this year, as central processing unit (CPU) firms are driving the trend and demand for quad-core servers is growing.
HP attributed its success in the large-enterprise market to the trends in server CPU virtualization and growing awareness on energy saving.
“HP’s strategy is to download our medium to large-sized computers’ VSE software to x86, which we call insight-Dynamics. This is what has led to HP’s success in recent years,” Liao said.
As the strong performance of x86 CPU is favored among small and medium-sized enterprises, HP has launched a few efficent, reasonably priced models to fit their needs.
Neal Wang (王伯寧), senior marketing manager of AMD, said HP is an important partner for AMD and the two companies have been collaborating for 12 years.
Wang said the popularity of AMD Opteron is due to its outstanding performance, optimized virtualization, investment protection and power efficiency.
HP had a 34 percent share of Taiwan’s x86 market last year.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained