FINANCE
Bank blocks virtual credit
The Chinese central bank blocked plans by Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊) and an affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) to offer virtual credit cards, a person with knowledge of the matter said, as the Chinese government moves to tighten restrictions on online financial products. The People’s Bank of China issued a notice to its Shenzhen and Hangzhou branches to halt virtual cards as well as payment operations using so-called quick response codes, citing safety risks, the person said, declining to be identified because the information is private. The virtual cards would have allowed consumers to buy goods from online retail Web sites on credit.
INTERNET
Facebook begins video ads
Facebook Inc on Thursday began weaving video ads into people’s news feeds at the leading online social network in a move to grab revenue from the lucrative television market. Called premium video ads and in testing since the end of last year, the spots are being integrated into accounts of its more than 1.2 billion members, product marketing manager Susan Buckner said in an online post. The 15-second commercials play automatically when they pop up in news feeds and are designed for advertisers who want to reach large audiences with sight, sound and motion, according to Facebook.
ENTERTAINMENT
Ferrari plans Spanish park
Italian luxury sports carmaker Ferrari announced on Thursday it will open a 100 million euro (US$138.6 million) amusement park in 2016 with rides and a five-star hotel in Spain, its first such venture in Europe. Spread over 75,000m2 within the PortAventura resort near Barcelona, Ferrari Land will feature Europe’s highest and fastest “vertical accelerator,” a driving simulator, restaurants, and a 250-room hotel, it said. Ferrari, part of Fiat Group Automobiles, already operates another theme park in Abu Dhabi called Ferrari World, which opened in 2010 and has a roller coaster touted as the fastest in the world.
ECONOMY
Inflation slows in Germany
The rate of inflation in Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, inched lower last month, official final data showed yesterday. The cost of living rose by 1.2 percent on a 12-month basis last month, compared with 1.3 percent in January, Germany’s federal statistics office Destatis said in a statement. Using the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices, the European Central Bank’s inflation yardstick, inflation in Germany stood at 1 percent last month, down from 1.2 percent in January. The European Central Bank defines price stability as increases in the harmonized index of close to but just below 2 percent.
MANUFACTURING
Steelmaker names CEO
An engineering expert yesterday took the helm of South Korea’ steel giant POSCO promising an overhaul of the company as it suffers falling profits owing to global economic uncertainty and competition from Chinese rivals. Shareholders and board of directors at the world’s No. 5 steelmaker approved Kwon Oh-joon, a 64-year-old metal engineer, as its eighth CEO yesterday, putting him in charge until March 2017. POSCO said in January that net profit for last year plunged 43.2 percent to 1.35 trillion won (US$1.25 billion) as a slowdown in China and economic woes in Europe sapped demand and caused a global glut. POSCO earns about 40 percent of its sales overseas.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is