ENERGY
Acciona in solar-farm bid
Acciona SA, the Spanish renewable energy company, has joined Pacific Hydro Pty in a venture seeking Australian funds to build the Moree solar farm in Australia’s New South Wales after partner BP PLC dropped out. Acciona will provide engineering and construction services to the solar power project, while Pacific Hydro and Fotowatio Renewable Ventures will take up the ownership stake previously held by BP, Melbourne-based Pacific Hydro said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. The venture will sign a power supply accord with Pacific Hydro, according to the statement. While the partners in the proposed A$923 million (US$987 million) solar plant won government funds last year, they failed to sign a power-purchase agreement in time to reach a December financing deadline. That prompted the government to reopen the funding competition to other bidders.
INTERNET
France, Microsoft partner up
French minister Frederic Lefebvre and Microsoft on Saturday announced a partnership to cultivate promising Internet startups in France. The US technology titan will work with the agency for the creation of enterprises headed by Alain Belais to identify young French companies to join a Microsoft BizSpark program, Lefebvre said in a press release. The program will provide selected startups with Windows Azure storage capacity and free access to software offered by Microsoft as services in the Internet “cloud,” according to Lefebvre. French Internet startups with “high growth potential” will be eligible to get two years worth of online services from Microsoft. The development of small and medium enterprises is vital “to support innovation, value creation and employment in France,” Lefebvre said.
AUTO INDUSTRY
Price-fixing case in court
The former chairman of Depo Auto Parts Industrial Co (帝寶工業) agreed to plead guilty to participating in a price-fixing conspiracy, the US Justice Department said in an e-mailed statement. According to a felony charge filed on Friday in a US District Court in San Francisco, Hsu Shiu-min (許敘銘) conspired to eliminate competition by fixing the prices of aftermarket auto lights, according to the statement. Depo Auto Parts, based in Taiwan, sells the lights that are used in repairs following a collision or as accessories and upgrades. “The international price-fixing conspiracy in the aftermarket auto lights industry caused harm to businesses and consumers,” Sharis Pozen, acting assistant attorney general in charge of the US Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, said in the statement.
BAHAMAS
China gives national stadium
The Bahamas is unveiling a national stadium that China built for more than US$50 million as the Asian country ramps up investment across the archipelago. Government officials from the Bahamas and China inaugurated the 15,000-seat Thomas A. Robinson Stadium late on Saturday. Bahaman Sports Minister Charles Maynard said the stadium was a gift with no strings attached. The stadium was built using only Chinese materials and labor, and further cements the growing relationship between the two countries. China also expects to build a US$50 million sports and recreational village around the stadium. China’s state-owned Export-Import Bank is building the US$2.6 billion Baha Mar resort complex in New Providence and has agreed to provide a US$41 million loan to build a new port and bridge in the Bahamas.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the