FINANCES
Foreign reserves increase
The nation’s foreign exchange reserves had risen to US$412.61 billion at the end of last month, an increase of US$3.22 billion since August, the central bank said in a statement yesterday. The central bank said the increase was because of the growing value of the euro and other major currencies versus the US dollar. As of the end of last month, foreign investors held US$235.4 billion in equities, bonds and local currency-based deposits, accounting for 57 percent of total foreign exchange reserves, the statement said. Taiwan is the world’s fourth-largest holder of foreign exchange reserves, the central bank said.
TECHNOLOGY
Chipmakers file lawsuit
Macronix International Co Ltd (旺宏電子), which supplies memory chips to Japanese video game console maker Nintendo Co, said on Thursday that it has filed a patent infringement lawsuit in the US against US memory chipmaker Spansion Inc and its subsidiary Spansion LLC. Micronix said Spansion and its subsidiary have illegally breached seven patents for flash memory chip manufacture and design, which are held by Macronix. Macronix’s move came after Spansion LLC filed legal action against 14 companies, including Macronix, in the US on Aug. 1 for six patent violations. The International Trade Commission in the US accepted the case on Sept. 4. The Hsinchu-based chipmaker has been granted more than 5,000 patents worldwide.
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