Rising demand for cloud-computing applications is expected to boost global server shipments by 22 percent this year to 12.2 million units from last year’s 10 million units, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) said yesterday.
Yuanta Securities Co (元大證券) also said it expected the worldwide cloud-based server market to continue posting annual growth this year, citing rising demand for big data analysis.
The comments come as Taiwan is playing an increasingly important role in developing the Facebook Inc-led Open Compute Project (OCP), which aims to produce energy-efficient cloud-based servers.
On Monday, the world’s first certification testing center opened in Taipei. The center was set up by the institute last year to test whether server makers’ new products meet the social networking company’s standards.
Quanta Cloud Technology Inc (雲達) and Wiwynn Corp (緯穎) have received certification from Facebook that their server products can effectively reduce power usage in data centers, ITRI said.
Quanta Cloud Technology general manager Mike Yang (楊晴華) told reporters he expects more local server makers will soon join the project.
However, he added that the firm’s gross margin may be dragged down because of intensifying pricing competition with rivals also seeking certification from the OCP Foundation.
Nevertheless, he said that since the global cloud-based server market is likely to expand further at the same time, companies can still grow their businesses by selling products to buyers other than Facebook.
Yuanta analyst Vincent Chen (陳豊丰) echoed the concern, saying that since Facebook’s orders account for only a single-digit share of the global market, they may only provide a limited boost to local server makers.
“Facebook is the OCP’s biggest beneficiary and local server makers’ profits are unlikely to receive a significant boost because of pricing competition,” he said.
Meanwhile, Wiwynn president Emily Hong (洪麗甯) yesterday told reporters that the company had posted its first profit last year after two years of operation.
The subsidiary of Wistron Corp (緯創), the world’s third-largest contract notebook maker, has been supplying servers to companies including Amazon.com Inc, Microsoft Corp and Facebook since 2012, Hong said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained