Teco Group (東元集團) yesterday said it had formed an industrial alliance with companies in China in a bid to rival Silicon Valley in the US in the field of cloud computing services.
The group, whose flagship unit is the nation’s leading maker of industrial motors, Teco Electric & Machinery Co (東元電機), launched a cloud intelligence exhibition in Taipei’s Nangang Software Park (南港軟體園區), as it seeks to explore cloud computing business opportunities.
“Our goal is to build networks with cross-strait businesses to construct cloud computing valleys in Shanghai, Taipei and Qingdao,” Teco chairman Theodore Huang (黃茂雄) said at the launch ceremony.
“We believe the cross-strait ‘Cloud Valley’ will create many business opportunities, not only for large, but also small and medium-sized enterprises, helping transform Taiwan’s industrial structure from manufacturing to smart computing-oriented industries,” he said.
In September last year, Teco teamed up with SCI Straits Construction Investment Ltd (海峽建設), Farglory Land Development Co (遠雄建設), Chunghwa Telecom Co (中華電信), Shanghai Jiao Tong University Science Park Co Ltd (上海交大科技園), Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and International Business Machines Corp to form the cloud computing industrial alliance.
Citing International Data Corp data, Farglory chairman Chao Teng-hsiung (趙藤雄) said it is estimated that cloud computing technology will generate US$600 million in gross value to the global market by 2016, a 50 percent increase from US$300 million by next year.
“We expect more businesses to come to visit this exhibition, witness cloud computing technology’s evolution and join the alliance to develop platforms that integrate all the sectors into one unit,” Chao said.
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],”
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
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained