Acer Inc (宏碁) has no plans to launch any fourth-generation (4G) smartphones using Intel Corp chips this year, despite its current partnership with the US chipmaker in 3G phones.
Instead, the personal computer maker will roll out a lineup of 4G phones using chips from Qualcomm Inc and MediaTek Inc (聯發科), its two major suppliers for 3G phones, the company said earlier this week.
The new Acer 4G phones are due to be available for the Taiwanese market from early next quarter, when the country is expected to begin operations of its Long-Term Evolution (LTE) network, Vincent Chen (陳建志), a product manager at Acer’s telecom business department, said on Tuesday at a product launch for the Liquid E3, a mid-tier 3G smartphone.
Chen declined to give specifics as to why Acer will not use Intel chips in the near term, after the two joined hands early last year to launch the 4.3-inch Liquid C1 Android smartphone for emerging markets in the Asia-Pacific region, such as Thailand.
Intel has been a leading player in the PC industry, but is a relative latecomer to the mobile chip market, which is currently dominated by ARM-based power-efficient chips from Qualcomm and Apple Inc that work better in smartphones and tablets without quickly draining their batteries.
In February, Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) unveiled three new smartphones in its budget ZenFone range based on Intel’s Atom chipsets.
However, none of them support 4G LTE.
Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), founder and CEO of US-based artificial intelligence chip designer Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) on Friday celebrated the first Nvidia Blackwell wafer produced on US soil. Huang visited TSMC’s advanced wafer fab in the US state of Arizona and joined the Taiwanese chipmaker’s executives to witness the efforts to “build the infrastructure that powers the world’s AI factories, right here in America,” Nvidia said in a statement. At the event, Huang joined Y.L. Wang (王英郎), vice president of operations at TSMC, in signing their names on the Blackwell wafer to
France cannot afford to ignore the third credit-rating reduction in less than a year, French Minister of Finance Roland Lescure said. “Three agencies have downgraded us and we can’t ignore this cloud,” he told Franceinfo on Saturday, speaking just hours after S&P lowered his country’s credit rating to “A+” from “AA-” in an unscheduled move. “Fundamentally, it’s an additional cloud to a weather forecast that was already pretty gray. It’s a call for lucidity and responsibility,” he said, adding that this is “a call to be serious.” The credit assessor’s move means France has lost its double-A rating at two of the
AI BOOST: Although Taiwan’s reliance on Chinese rare earth elements is limited, it could face indirect impacts from supply issues and price volatility, an economist said DBS Bank Ltd (星展銀行) has sharply raised its forecast for Taiwan’s economic growth this year to 5.6 percent, citing stronger-than-expected exports and investment linked to artificial intelligence (AI), as it said that the current momentum could peak soon. The acceleration of the global AI race has fueled a surge in Taiwan’s AI-related capital spending and exports of information and communications technology (ICT) products, which have been key drivers of growth this year. “We have revised our GDP forecast for Taiwan upward to 5.6 percent from 4 percent, an upgrade that mainly reflects stronger-than-expected AI-related exports and investment in the third
RARE EARTHS: The call between the US Treasury Secretary and his Chinese counterpart came as Washington sought to rally G7 partners in response to China’s export controls China and the US on Saturday agreed to conduct another round of trade negotiations in the coming week, as the world’s two biggest economies seek to avoid another damaging tit-for-tat tariff battle. Beijing last week announced sweeping controls on the critical rare earths industry, prompting US President Donald Trump to threaten 100 percent tariffs on imports from China in retaliation. Trump had also threatened to cancel his expected meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) in South Korea later this month on the sidelines of the APEC summit. In the latest indication of efforts to resolve their dispute, Chinese state media reported that
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