■ENERGY
Reductions to hit 3m tonnes
The Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday that reduction of carbon emissions from local energy industries is expected to reach 3 million tonnes this year, which represents about NT$1.68 billion in economic value. The current carbon trading price on EU markets is 14 euros (US$18) per tonne, making the value of Taiwan’s full-year carbon emission reduction equal to 42 million euros, said the ministry’s Bureau of Energy. As of this month, the energy bureau has approved 38 applications from the local energy sector to check their greenhouse gas inventory or verify their carbon reductions, compared with a total of 30 applications last year, the bureau said.
■INTERNET
Three probed in virus case
Police and the FBI are investigating three former Slovenian computer science students on suspicion of creating one of the world’s most dangerous computer viruses, a news channel reported on Thursday. The two men and one woman are alleged to have created a virus that has infected more than 13 million computers and aims to gather credit card, password and Internet banking details, the online news channel 24ur reported. The 24ur report said the three former students had sold the virus to Spanish hackers who subsequently spread it via the Internet.
■FAST FOOD
McDonald’s income rises
Net income climbed 12 percent at McDonald’s Corp in the second quarter as customers around the globe gobbled up its cheap food and US diners responded to its profitable frappes and other drinks on its hit McCafe menu. The world’s largest hamburger chain also got a boost from business in China and Australia. For the three months that ended June 30, McDonald’s earned US$1.23 billion, or US$1.13 per share. That is up from last year’s net income of US$1.09 billion, or US$0.98 per share. Revenue climbed 5 percent to US$5.95 billion. That is up from US$5.65 billion last year.
■AUTOMAKERS
Ford posts quarterly profit
Ford said on Friday that it made US$2.6 billion from April through last month, its fifth straight quarterly profit. The company, which reported record losses in 2008, now predicts it will end next year with more cash than debt. President and chief executive officer Alan Mulally said the company is ahead of where he thought it would be in its turnaround. “Our performance this year gives us great confidence going forward,” he said. Ford’s second-quarter revenue rose 14 percent to US$31.3 billion. Its profit was US$0.61 per share, US$0.08 less than a year ago, when a big debt payment reduced Ford’s interest payments. Ford said it expects to make money for the next two years.
■BANKING
US bank failures reach 100
Bank failures this year have surpassed a bleak milestone of 100 as regulators shut down banks in Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, Kansas, Nevada, Minnesota and Oregon. The seven bank seizures announced on Friday bring to 103 the failures so far this year. The pace of bank closures this year is well ahead of that of last year, which saw a total of 140 banks shuttered amid the recession and mounting loan defaults. That was the highest annual tally since 1992, at the height of the savings and loan crisis. The number of bank failures is expected to peak this year and be slightly higher than the 140 that fell 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],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts