The output of Taiwan’s LED streetlight manufacturing sector is expected to reach as much as NT$34 billion (US$1.15 billion) by 2018, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
Based on the government’s efforts to replace the current -mercury-vapor streetlights with LED models, the production value of the LED streetlight sector is expected to account for 20 percent of the global total by 2018, according to an assessment released by the ministry’s Bureau of Energy.
Since the start of this year, the government has been pushing for the installation of LED streetlights, which is expected to help the LED sector build a supply chain, as well as create clusters of manufacturers, in a bid to strengthen Taiwan’s global competitiveness, the bureau said. Under the projects, the government is expected to spend about NT$2.8 billion to install more than 326,000 LED streetlights around the nation.
The production value of the local LED lighting sector jumped to NT$186.7 billion last year from NT$93.9 billion in 2009, the bureau said.
Although the global financial turmoil that resulted from the debt crisis in the eurozone rocked the world’s economy last year, the output of Taiwan’s LED lighting sector rose 11 percent from a year earlier, the bureau said.
Globally, the output of the LED lighting sector is expected to rise 23 percent this year from the previous year to US$39 billion (NT$1.15 trillion) on the back of demand that will be boosted by more affordable products.
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
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day