■TELECOMS
3G subscriptions on the rise
The number of 3G mobile phone subscriptions in Taiwan has continued to increase rapidly, with subscriptions rising to 7.96 million to account for 32.5 percent of the total mobile phone subscriptions in the first quarter of this year, a report released this week by the Institute for Information Industry said. The number marks 15.2 percent growth from the previous quarter, when 3G subscriptions totaled 6.91 million, or 28.5 percent of the total mobile phone subscriptions, said the report authored by the institute’s Foreseeing Innovative New Digiservices division. In the first quarter of this year, mobile phone subscriptions jumped 0.7 percent quarter-on-quarter to hit 24.47 million, with the mobile phone subscriptions per 100 inhabitants standing at 106.5, the report says. Compared with the significant growth in 3G network subscriptions, 2G network subscriptions declined 5.5 percent quarter-on-quarter to 15.03 million, the report said.
■AUTOMOBILES
Nissan to expand in China
Japan’s Nissan Motor Co and its Chinese partner Dongfeng Motor Corp (東風汽車) plan to build a new engine factory in central China, a newspaper reported yesterday. The two firms will jointly invest more than ¥24 billion (US$224 million) in construction of the new plant, which will begin operation in March next year, the Nikkei business daily reported. The factory will be located near Zhengzhou Nissan Automobile Co, an assembly joint venture between the two automakers in Henan Province, the newspaper said. Nissan and Dongfeng are to set up a new joint venture in October to control the plant with an initial capital of ¥11 billion, the daily said. Dongfeng will control 51 percent of the venture and the 50-50 Dongfeng-Nissan venture taking the remaining 49 percent.
■ECONOMY
ASEAN to face ‘headwinds’
The major ASEAN economies are likely to deliver higher-than-expected growth this year, but the outlook for next year looks challenging, economists said in a report published in Singapore yesterday. Morgan Stanley raised its growth forecast for Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia for this year to 5.6 percent from an earlier estimate of 5.5 percent. The investment bank kept intact its recently upgraded GDP growth projections for Malaysia at 5.7 percent and Thailand at 5.6 percent. It jacked up the forecast for Indonesia by half a point to 6 percent and cut Singapore’s from 5.1 percent to 4.3 percent, the breakdown in the Business Times said. ASEAN economies will “face headwinds” next year as higher inflation cuts into purchasing power and capital investment decisions, and export markets soften, the investment bank’s outlook said. It cut its GDP growth forecast for next year for the region to 5.1 percent, nearly 1 point.
■COMPUTERS
Ex-IBM worker admits theft
An executive who worked at IBM Corp for nearly a decade pleaded guilty on Friday to stealing trade secrets about the company’s pricing and trying to pass them off to his superiors at rival Hewlett-Packard Co when he took a job there. Atul Malhotra, 42, faces up to 10 years in prison and a US$250,000 fine on the single count of theft of trade secrets, prosecutors said on Friday. Malhotra entered his plea to the charge in US District Court in San Jose, California, where sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 29. Malhotra worked from 1997 to 2006 as a director of sales and business development in the Armonk, New York-based IBM’s global services division.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is