COMPUTERS
Dell, allies raise offer
Dell founder Michael Dell and his investor allies on Wednesday boosted their buyout offer for the struggling company to become a private entity. The new offer from Michael Dell and private equity firm Silver Lake was increased to US$13.75 per share, from US$13.65 a share, on condition of a change in the shareholder vote process. The new bid adds about US$150 million to the US$24.4 billion offer, according to shareholder letter.
SPAIN
Unemployment rate drops
The unemployment rate fell for the first time in two years to 26.26 percent in the second quarter, official data showed yesterday, a day after the central bank said the recession-hit country seemed close to a recovery. On the back of demand for workers during the tourist season, the number of jobless people fell by 225,200 over the quarter to reach a total of 5,977,500 unemployed.
BANKING
N Zealand rate unchanged
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand held its official interest rate at a record low 2.5 percent yesterday amid signs of slowing growth in major trading partners Australia and China. Though removal of monetary stimulus will likely be needed in the future, the official cash rate pegged at 2.5 percent since March 2011 was not expected to change before the end of the year, the bank said.
ENTERTAINMENT
Imax expanding in China
Imax and Chinese partner Wanda Cinema Line Corp (萬達) plan to open up to 120 giant-screen cinemas in China’s fast-growing film market. The agreement will make Wanda — currently Asia’s biggest cinema operator — the biggest international Imax operator, Imax 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