Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), the world’s top contract laptop maker, has partnered with South Korea’s main Internet provider KT Corp to deliver branded cloud servers, according to a company source familiar with the matter.
Taoyuan-based Quanta, which unveiled its own cloud brand “QCT” last month, is tapping into the Asian telecoms segment while maintaining a focus on the US market, the source said, requesting anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak on the matter.
This year, Quanta is expected to generate higher revenues from its branded cloud products than from its contract cloud business for clients, the source said.
“The knowledge edge in the notebook business is blurring, but we still have domain knowledge in the cloud business,” the source said. “We are just sticking to the trend.”
Last month, Quanta won orders for 100,000 cloud servers from NTT Docomo Inc, Japan’s biggest mobile phone service operator, and will begin shipments in the third quarter of this year, Taiwanese media reported, citing sources in the Japanese supply chain.
NTT has considered Quanta’s cloud servers to be the most competitive products on the market since the Taiwanese firm became a major supplier of cloud servers to big names such as Google Inc and Facebook, the report said.
Moreover, Japan’s second-largest mobile carrier, KDDI Corp, reportedly gave hundreds of cloud server orders to Quanta and Wistron Corp (緯創), with Quanta favored to win follow-up orders because of its partnership with big customers.
Quanta said at an investors conference last month that its non-notebook business accounted for 30 percent of its total revenue last year, and the figure was forecast to rise to 35 percent this year.
According to research firm Gartner Inc, worldwide server shipments grew 1.5 percent to 2.35 million units in the first quarter of this year, while server revenue declined 1.8 percent year-on-year to US$12.44 billion.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
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
US CONSCULTANT: The US Department of Commerce’s Ursula Burns is a rarely seen US government consultant to be put forward to sit on the board, nominated as an independent director Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday nominated 10 candidates for its new board of directors, including Ursula Burns from the US Department of Commerce. It is rare that TSMC has nominated a US government consultant to sit on its board. Burns was nominated as one of seven independent directors. She is vice chair of the department’s Advisory Council on Supply Chain Competitiveness. Burns is to stand for election at TSMC’s annual shareholders’ meeting on June 4 along with the rest of the candidates. TSMC chairman Mark Liu (劉德音) was not on the list after in December last