ELECTRONICS
Hon Hai TVs fly off shelves
President Chain Store Corp (統一超商) yesterday said it had sold about 3,000 Internet-enabled televisions made by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) in the first three days of sales through its 7-Eleven outlets and online shopping portal 7net. President Chain said more than 1,000 TVs were sold on the first day of sales. Delivery of the TVs is expected to take between seven to 12 days, it added.
ECONOMY
Furloughed workers rise
As of Sunday, 824 workers from 28 companies had reached agreements with their employers on taking leave without pay, according to the latest figures released by the Council of Labor Affairs yesterday. The number has increased from figures released on June 15, when 806 workers from 24 companies had agreed to furlough arrangements.
AVIATION
Carriers add Palau flights
TransAsia Airways Corp (復興航空) announced yesterday that it will launch a Taiwan-Palau route on Saturday. The carrier said it will offer one flight to Palau every Wednesday and Saturday, using Airbus A320 planes that can accommodate 150 passengers. China Airlines Ltd (中華航空), the nation’s largest carrier, said that it will add another Palau flight on Sundays starting in September. It already offers flights to Palau every Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
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
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
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