JAPAN
Economy recovering quickly
Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Banri Kaieda told ASEAN member nations that the country’s economy was recovering at a quicker pace than initially expected from the devastating March 11 earthquake and tsunami, Kyodo news agency reported. Kaieda was speaking at a meeting with his counterparts from the 10-member association in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday, Kyodo said. He was quoted as saying that the output of Japanese manufacturers in the areas devastated by the earthquake and tsunami is expected to return to levels before the disaster by the end of this month. The country’s automotive industry officials said this month that car sales were well off the post-disaster trough. New vehicle sales slumped by more than a fifth last month as the production disruption from the earthquake lingered, but the data showed a big improvement from the previous months as more parts became available.
AVIATION
Air Transat, staff reach deal
After more than nine months of talks, Air Transat and the union representing its 1,500 flight attendants have reached a tentative labor agreement and avoided the threat of a strike, both sides said on Saturday. In the middle of last month, flight attendants from the Canadian airline Air Transat, whose collective labor agreement expired in November last year, threatened to strike beginning on July 20. However, on Friday an agreement between the company and the Canadian Union of Public Employees was reached, according to both sides. The tentative agreement is expected to be presented to union members in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver by the end of this month, Air Transat employees’ union representative Nathalie Stringer said. According to a statement released by the company, the agreement will last five years and will come up for renewal in 2015.
TOYS
IPO expected next year
The initial public offering (IPO) of Toys R Us, the world’s largest toy retailer, is now expected next year, two sources told Reuters. The company filed for an IPO of up to US$800 million in May last year. It had contemplated coming public in the first half of this year, but delayed its IPO after lackluster holiday sales. It later contemplated an IPO this month. Toys R Us has made it through the US Securities and Exchange Commission review process, so it could technically launch an IPO any time it wants — yet it is expected to delay the offering until next year, one of the sources said. The sources declined to be named as the information is not public. Toys R Us declined to comment.
INTERNET
Schmidt to testify at hearing
Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt has agreed to testify at a US Senate hearing in September into online competition. Google had initially been reluctant to send Schmidt or chief executive Larry Page to the hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights. However, subcommittee chairman Senator Herb Kohl, a Democrat, said on Friday that the Internet search giant had agreed to send Schmidt, who stepped down as CEO in April to become executive chairman. “We look forward to Eric Schmidt’s participation at our Antitrust Subcommittee hearing in September,” Kohl said in a statement. “This will allow us to have a truly informational and thorough public hearing.”
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