REAL ESTATE
Property sold for record price
A residential property in Taipei registered an actual price of NT$1.61 million (US$53,957) per ping (3.31m2), the highest on record in Taiwan, realty agents said yesterday. Citing a report by the Ministry of the Interior, which implemented an actual price registration system for real-estate transactions last year, Taiwan Realty Co executive researcher (台灣房屋) Sarah Liu (劉怡蓉) said that a March transaction on an apartment in a new building located on Taipei’s Xinsheng S Road has recorded the highest price in the nation. Saying that the transaction was made for a lower floor apartment, Liu said the price could be expected to be even higher for properties on higher floors, which have a view over Da-an Forest Park.
ELECTRONICS
Flat panel buyers arrive
A group of Chinese buyers arrived in Taipei yesterday for an annual procurement drive for Taiwanese flat panels, according to the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA). The group’s leader, China Video Industry Association deputy director Bai Weimin (白為民), has been invited by TAITRA to deliver a keynote speech tomorrow at the Display Taiwan exhibition, the council said in a press release. Bai and her 30-member group from eight major Chinese TV vendors are scheduled to visit several panel suppliers, such as Innolux Corp (群創光電) and AU Optronics Corp (AUO, 友達光電), Bai was quoted by the Economic Daily News as saying on Saturday. Bai also estimated that the group will place orders for 30 million flat panels worth more than US$4.5 billion this year, in a bid to meet their demand for ultra-high definition TVs, the newspaper said.
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