Taiwan’s largest cement maker, Taiwan Cement Corp (台泥), plans to build a large solar power plant, the company and local media said yesterday, confirming a trend for the island’s companies to focus increasingly on green technologies.
Taiwan Cement is looking to build the 100-megawatt plant in Pingtung County, targeting an investment described as being worth “tens of billions” of Taiwan dollars, the Commercial Times reported, citing chairman Leslie Koo (辜成允).
GREEN TECHNOLOGY
A spokeswoman for Taiwan Cement, who declined to be named, confirmed the report, but said she had no other details.
Taiwan Cement is in talks with Taiwan Sugar Corp (台糖), a major land owner, on terms for leasing a piece of land in Pingtung, according to the report.
Solar energy has attracted significant interest in Taiwan, with Inventec Corp (英業達), a leading contract notebook computer maker, saying last month it will invest at least NT$3 billion (US$95 million) on a solar cell unit.
DIVERSIFYING
Chip giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) last year announced an investment of about US$192 million for a 20 percent stake in Motech Industries Inc (茂迪), the largest producer of solar cells in the nation.
TSMC, the world’s top contract microchip maker by revenue, this year invested another US$50 million in a US solar-panel maker.
Taiwan has estimated its solar energy industry will be worth up to NT$200 billion by 2020.
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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
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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