SOUTH KOREA
FX reserves hit record high
Seoul’s foreign exchange reserves rose to their third straight record high last month as the nation’s key buffer against potential financial turmoil steadily approaches US$300 billion. The country’s foreign reserves totaled US$298.62 billion at the end of last month, the central bank said in a statement yesterday. That was US$950 million higher than February’s record US$297.67 billion. The reserves have climbed since falling to just above US$200 billion in November 2008 as the nation’s monetary authorities used them to help fight a shortage of US dollar liquidity as credit dried up amid the global financial crisis. The Bank of Korea said strength in the euro and other currencies, which led to an increase in the US dollar value of the portion of the reserves denominated in them, as well as operating profits were behind last month’s increase.
INTERNET
CEO to donate US$120m
Japan Internet conglomerate Softbank Corp said CEO Masayoshi Son would donate US$120 million of his personal wealth plus his salary until he retires to help tsunami victims. Softbank, the only Japanese mobile carrier offering the iPhone, said yesterday that Son’s ¥10 billion donation to the Japanese Red Cross Society and other nonprofit organizations is the biggest by an individual to quake and tsunami victims. Son, 53, will also donate all of his annual salary each year to aid organizations until he retires. His salary was ¥108 million in the fiscal year that ended last month.
ENERGY
BP to sell aluminum unit
British energy group BP said yesterday it had agreed to sell its ARCO Aluminum unit to a Japanese consortium for US$680 million as it seeks to meet the costs of last year’s disastrous Gulf of Mexico oil spill. “Although a strong business, ARCO Aluminum is clearly a non-strategic asset for BP,” chief executive Bob Dudley said in a statement. “Today’s agreement will deliver an attractive price for the business, unlocking its value for our shareholders.” The US unit, which supplies aluminum sheet used to make beverage cans, is being bought by a consortium comprising five Japanese companies. Sumitomo Light Metal Industries is to take a 40 percent stake, Furukawa Sky Aluminum Corp 35 percent, Sumitomo Corp 20 percent, Itochu Metals Corp 3 percent and Itochu Corp 2 percent. BP is looking to unlock US$30 billion by the end of this year to meet cleanup and compensation costs linked to last year’s oil spill.
ENERGY
Oil prices too high: Kuwait
OPEC member Kuwait said yesterday that oil prices were too high because of unrest in the Middle East and Japan’s earthquake. “Although we are enjoying high prices, we would like to see lower prices ... We would like to see a normal oil price,” Faruq al-Zanki, chief executive of national conglomerate Kuwait Petroleum Corp, told reporters. He said a “normal oil price would be between US$90 and US$100” a barrel. New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery next month rose US$0.29 to US$108.23 per barrel yesterday afternoon in Asian trading, topping Friday’s peak of US$107.93 and hitting its highest level since late September 2008. Brent North Sea crude for delivery next month advanced US$0.21 to US$118.91. Zanki said that unrest sweeping the Middle East, especially with the outage of Libyan oil supplies, had “pushed oil prices up by around 20 percent.”
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