A 32-member tour group from Beijing is in Taiwan for health checks, spa treatment and sightseeing, making it the second Chinese group to visit the country for medical tourism since last month.
Hung Tzi-jen (洪子仁), vice general manager of a health management company affiliated with Shin Kong Wu Ho-Su Memorial Hospital (新光醫院), which introduced the special tourism package, said it had expanded its range of services.
The group visited Yangmingshan National Park shortly after arriving on Sunday at the start of a six-day visit. It then proceeded to Beitou (北投) for dinner and a spa at a hot spring resort there.
Yesterday, 17 members of the group received positron emission tomography (PET) examinations at Shin Kong hospital.
Each spent about NT$35,000 (US$1,070) on the PET examinations, less than the equivalent of NT$50,000 they would be charged in Beijing, Hung said, adding that the rest of the group were to undergo other types of physical checks.
The health management company also signed an agreement yesterday with Shin Kong and HNA Life Insurance Co (新光海航人壽) — a 50-50 joint venture between China’s Hainan Airlines Co (海航集團) and Taiwan’s Shin Kong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽) — Beijing’s MJ Health Screening Co (美兆健檢中心) and SweetMe Hotspring Resort (水美溫泉會館) to promote visits by policyholders and members of these companies.
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
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
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