GERMANY
Exports maintain growth
Official data show exports continued to grow in February, rising 1.6 percent compared with the previous month. Imports to Europe’s biggest economy were up a strong 3.9 percent. The Federal Statistical Office said yesterday that the country exported goods and services worth 91.3 billion euros (US$119 billion) in February. It was the second consecutive month-on-month rise, following a 3.4 percent increase in January. In year-on-year terms, exports climbed 8.6 percent — with exports to countries outside the EU leading the way, rising 13.4 percent. The economy traditionally has been powered by exports, but is being helped lately by increasingly strong domestic demand. Imports totaled 76.5 billion euros in February — also rising for the second straight month. They were 6.1 percent higher than a year earlier.
BANKING
Fed calls out shady banking
US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke called for new steps to curb “shadow banking” operating beyond standard oversight, while saying the US economy has far to go before fully recovering from the credit crisis. “The heavy human and economic costs of the crisis underscore the importance of taking all necessary steps to avoid a repeat of the events of the past few years,” Bernanke said on Monday in a speech in Stone Mountain, Georgia. Bernanke supported efforts to increase the “resiliency” of money market funds, referring to US Securities and Exchange Commission proposals to require firms to maintain capital buffers or to redeem shares at the market value of underlying assets rather than at a fixed price of US$1. He also called for efforts to monitor financial innovation and backed curbs on intraday credit in triparty repo markets.
SPAIN
Savings of 10bn euros eyed
The government, which last month introduced a tough budget for this year, said on Monday it expects to save another 10 billion euros by making public services like education and healthcare run more efficiently. The savings will be made by both the central government and the country’s 17 autonomous regions, a government spokesman said following a meeting between Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and the education and health ministers. “The state expects that the savings that could be made in the education and health sectors will represent 10 billion euros, but that must be done with the participation of the regions. If they are not involved, we can’t make these savings,” he added. The autonomous regions are responsible for providing education and healthcare.
INTERNET
AOL selling 800 patents
AOL announced plans to sell more than 800 patents to Microsoft in a US$1.056 billion deal giving the struggling Internet pioneer a needed cash injection as it seeks to fend off pressure from shareholders. The deal also provides Microsoft with licenses to more than 300 additional patents and patent applications, AOL said in a statement. AOL chief executive Tim Armstrong said the deal “unlocks current dollar value for our shareholders and enables AOL to continue to aggressively execute on our strategy to create long-term shareholder value.” AOL said that after the deal is complete, it would continue to hold “a significant patent portfolio of over 300 patents and patent applications spanning core and strategic technologies, including advertising, search ... and security among others.” AOL also received a license to the patents being sold to Microsoft.
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