The manufacturing sector is upbeat on business sentiment for the next six months, thanks to strong demand from emerging markets and the gradual economic recovery in Europe and the US, the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER, 台經院) said yesterday.
The latest survey conducted by the Taipei-based think tank showed that respondents who felt bullish about business sentiment in the near future were up 11.8 percentage points last month to 31.9 percent, from 20.2 percent in October.
On the contrary, 13.2 percent of manufacturers polled viewed the climate as bearish, slightly up from 12.4 percent in October. Those who said business would remain the same dropped to 54.9 percent from 67.5 percent.
Chen Miao (陳淼), director of the macroeconomic forecasting center at TIER, said last month was normally a slow month for manufacturers, but strong demand from emerging markets, a gradual financial recovery in Europe and the US, and the Christmas shopping spree had boosted manufacturers’ confidence.
The business climate gauge for the manufacturing sector last month stood at 112.29 points, up from 109.12 points in October.
This marked the first rise after the index had posted three consecutive months of decline, the survey showed.
In a separate survey conducted by the Taipei Computer Association (TCA, 台北市電腦公會) that was released on Wednesday, 53 percent of companies that participate at Computex were also upbeat.
Taiwan’s Computex is the second-largest technology trade show in the world.
The TCA survey showed that technology manufacturers generally expected their business to increase in the first quarter next year compared with the current quarter.
This marks a changing pattern as the first three months of the year are traditionally slower than the fourth quarter, TCA said.
Companies in the cloud computing, tablet PC, USB 3.0, electronic readers and smart handheld devices businesses were among those most optimistic, it said.
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