INVESTMENT
BERI ranks Taiwan No. 3
The US’ Business Environment Risk Intelligence (BERI) ranked Taiwan the third-best place to invest in the world and the second-best place to invest in Asia in its latest Business Risk Report, issued this month. Taiwan moved up one notch from the previous report, the first time it has regained third place since 2011. The survey evaluates a country’s investment environment in three sub-indices: operations risk, political risk and foreign exchange risk.
CHIPMAKERS
MediaTek sales soaring
MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the nation’s No. 1 chip designer, said yesterday that its consolidated sales for last month hit a 39-month high on the back of solid demand from China. MediaTek posted NT$12.57 billion (US$426 million) in consolidated sales for the month, up 33.32 percent from the previous month and 58.28 percent from a year earlier. The figure is the highest since January 2010, when the firm’s consolidated sales stood at NT$13.58 billion.
INVESTMENT
HTC plans Windows tablets
HTC Corp (宏達電) may launch two tablet models running Microsoft Corp’s Windows RT Blue platform in mid-October to be codenamed R7 and R12 in accordance with their respective screen sizes — a post on the technology Web site PhoneArena said on Tuesday. HTC declined to comment on the report.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”