Sun Moon Lake (日月潭), one of Taiwan’s most popular scenic spots, is often described as a wonderland veiled in mountain mist. But some tourists have been complaining about big hotels on the edge of the lake that detract from the aesthetics of the setting.
Sun Moon Lake in Nantou County’s Yuchih Township (魚池) is the nation’s largest lake and is surrounded by mountains that rise 760m above sea level.
Hung Wei-hsin (洪維新), deputy director of the Sun Moon Lake Scenic Area Administration, said that last year a total of 3 million foreign and domestic tourists visited the area and this year the number is likely to increase.
But some of these visitors have expressed regret that the natural scenery is being spoiled by unsightly structures on the lake’s edge.
Rui Ming-tai, a tourist from Taichung City in central Taiwan, told the Central News Agency that public facilities and the quality of service at the Sun Moon Lake Scenic Area have improved, but that the views seem to be less stimulating than when he visited the area two years ago.
“The quality of the roads is better, and hotels are more and more comfortable, but we are seeing many giant hotels, including some under construction, and their facades are far from being in harmony with nature,” he said.
He said that the administration should do something about coordinating the height and outward appearance of the hotels.
Rui said he would have liked to have seen the lake from his hotel room, but another hotel under construction on the edge of the lake was blocking the view.
Another tourist, who declined to give her name, said that the design of some buildings being constructed near the lake is “odd.” As an example, she cited the station for a cable car service that will connect Sun Moon Lake with the Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village (九族文化村), also a tourist spot.
Having traveled in many countries, she said, she did not understand why the Taiwanese government could not harmonize the buildings’ design and require hotel developers to use natural construction materials such as wood so that the buildings would blend with the surroundings.
The urban planning section of the Nantou County Government said construction plans for hotels are subject to size and height regulations, and should be no taller than six or seven floors.
However, some of the hotels do not adhere to these specifications and there are no regulations regarding the facades of hotels and the materials used to construct them.
“The county government and the scenic area administration can only make suggestions [on hotels’ appearance and building materials] to the owners,” Hung said.
Moreover, hotel operators have their own business considerations and usually want to have as many rooms as possible to maximize their profits, he added.
There are three big hotels under construction in the scenic area.
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