Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday said it is seeking strategic partners to offer 4G services after winning a spectrum license on Wednesday.
The company, which won a 20 megahertz bandwidth for NT$9.18 billion (US$311.7 million) via its 100 percent-owned Ambit Microsystems Corp (國碁), consider 4G investment a critical element to its effort to move beyond hardware manufacturing.
It is also developing software, operating systems and cloud-computing-based services, such as long-distance surveillance and medical care, to be delivered on the high-speed network.
Hon Hai chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) said the company is aiming to provide data-oriented and value-added services, including video transmission and mobile games, through its 4G network in the future.
To facilitate its 4G services, Hon Hai plans to upgrade its software development center in Greater Kaohsiung into a digital convergence center, Gou said.
Hon Hai is expected to finish construction of three cloud-computing data centers in Greater Kaohsiung by the end of this year and to start a research and development center there in 2015.
However, the company is in no rush to seek partners for its 4G business, he said.
“We will seek strategic partners, who can give us real technological help,” he said. “We will also look for internal partners [telecom operators] to offer roaming services in the future.”
Gou also urged the government to offer a level playing field for all players by separating Chunghwa Telecom Co’s (中華電信) fixed-line business from its mobile business. Instead, the government can allocate the fixed-line network for the use of the public or provide it to other telecom operators at a low cost, he said.
Separately, Hon Hai plans to issue 350 million restricted shares to employees in the coming year as an incentive to stay with the company, Gou said, adding that the company plans to raise salaries starting next month.
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