MANUFACTURING
Solar outlook rosy: group
Taiwanese solar companies are expected to grow their revenue by 16 percent this year to more than NT$172.26 billion, driven by a worldwide increase in solar system installations, the Photonics Industry and Technology Development Association (PIDA, 光電協進會), a local market researcher, forecast yesterday. Last year, local solar companies’ revenue grew by about 20 percent to NT$148.5 billion on greater demand from Asia, according to PIDA. Global solar system installation is forecast to rise to between 42 gigawatts and 45 gigawatts this year, PIDA said. Last year, global solar system installation was 36 gigawatts and is expected to grow by 36 percent to 49 gigawatts this year, according to a December forecast from SolarBuzz, another market researcher.
ECONOMY
MOEA lists China projects
The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said it approved 32 China-bound investment projects worth US$1.67 billion last month, including the first cross-strait naphtha cracker investment plan. The total was 1.68 times the amount approved in the same period last year, boosted by a US$721 million investment by Taiwan Cement Corp (台泥), the ministry said in a statement on Thursday. The projects included a local consortium’s plan to spend US$264 million building naphtha crackers in China’s Fujian Province in a joint venture with Chinese firms.
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