BANKING
ING given extension
Dutch bank ING and the European Commission said yesterday they had agreed to an extension for the bank to repay bailout loans granted during the financial crisis. The new agreement gives the bank more time to sell its insurance interests and to repay the remainder of the 10 billion euros (US$13 billion) it received in state aid in 2008. The bank will now repay the remaining 3 billion euros from the loan, along with a 50 percent premium in four equal payments of 1.125 billion euros, it said in a statement. The first payment will be made on Monday next week and the final payment in May 2015. As part of the original 2009 agreement, ING was committed to selling its insurance operations by the end of next year, but the new agreement gives them more time, potentially up to the end of 2018.
THAILAND
GDP growth slows
The country’s growth slowed in the third quarter as cooling global demand hurt the nation’s exports, even as signs of a recovery in China and the US signal the economy may have bottomed. GDP increased 3 percent in the three months through September from a year earlier, after expanding a revised 4.4 percent in the previous quarter, the National Economic and Social Development Board said in Bangkok yesterday. The median of 13 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey was 3 percent. Thailand said the economy would grow 5.5 percent this year, compared with an earlier prediction of between 5.5 percent and 6 percent. The agency forecast GDP would increase between 4.5 percent and 5.5 percent next year, and inflation will average between 2.5 percent and 3.5 percent, compared with 3 percent this year. Exports may grow 5.5 percent this year and 12.2 percent next year, the agency forecast.
ELECTRONICS
Annul LG patents: Samsung
South Korea’s Samsung has hit back at rival LG in a patents row over next-generation display panels, with both firms accusing the other of stealing technology and senior staff to grab a lead in the market. Samsung Display, an affiliate of Samsung Electronics, asked a Seoul patents court last week to annul seven patents related to organic light-emitting diode (OLED) panel technologies held by LG, a company spokesman said yesterday. Samsung said that the technologies lacked the originality and innovation to warrant a patent. The move came after LG Display — one of the world’s top flat-screen TV makers — filed a patents suit in September against the two Samsung units for allegedly infringing seven of its OLED-related technologies. LG said that five of Samsung’s products, including its global hit Galaxy S-series smartphones and tablet computer Galaxy Tab, infringed its patents.
TECHNOLOGY
Cisco to buy Meraki
Cisco Inc agreed to pay US$1.2 billion for closely held Meraki Inc, adding technology that helps businesses manage Wi-Fi networks remotely and expanding its lineup of products for mid-sized customers. Cisco, the world’s largest maker of computer-networking equipment, is using a combination of cash and retention-based incentives to pay for the acquisition, the San Jose, California-based company said on Sunday in a statement. Chief executive officer John Chambers is seeking to capitalize on the boom in demand for smartphones and tablets in the workplace by snapping up a company that helps businesses manage security and wireless access points via the Internet. The deal is aimed at broadening Cisco’s customer base.
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