BANKING
First Bank plans Laos branch
First Commercial Bank (第一銀行), the flagship banking arm of First Financial Holding Co (第一金控), has obtained the green light from the Financial Supervisory Commission to open a branch in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. First Bank said in a statement yesterday it would seek approval from financial authorities in Laos to open the branch as soon as possible.
TECHNOLOGY
Hon Hai sells patents
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), the major assembler of Apple Inc’s iPhone and iPad, has sold a number of its communications technology patents to Google Inc for an undisclosed sum. The company said in a statement that it would continue to invest in research and development, “transforming such investments into valuable intellectual property assets.” Pennsylvania-based MiiCs & Partners facilitated the sale, Hon Hai said.
INVESTMENT
Chinese input plummets
Chinese investment in Taiwan in the first quarter plummeted 90.83 percent to US$12.75 million from a year earlier, and investments from other foreign countries also fell in the first quarter by 33.82 percent to US$833.7 million, the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Investment Commission said on Monday. Meanwhile, Taiwanese investment in China grew 28.97 percent in the first quarter from a year ago to top US$2.8 billion, the commission said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, booked its first-ever profit from its Arizona subsidiary in the first half of this year, four years after operations began, a company financial statement showed. Wholly owned by TSMC, the Arizona unit contributed NT$4.52 billion (US$150.1 million) in net profit, compared with a loss of NT$4.34 billion a year earlier, the statement showed. The company attributed the turnaround to strong market demand and high factory utilization. The Arizona unit counts Apple Inc, Nvidia Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc among its major customers. The firm’s first fab in Arizona began high-volume production
The Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robot Show, which is to be held from Wednesday to Saturday at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center, would showcase the latest in artificial intelligence (AI)-driven robotics and automation technologies, the organizer said yesterday. The event would highlight applications in smart manufacturing, as well as information and communications technology, the Taiwan Automation Intelligence and Robotics Association said. More than 1,000 companies are to display innovations in semiconductors, electromechanics, industrial automation and intelligent manufacturing, it said in a news release. Visitors can explore automated guided vehicles, 3D machine vision systems and AI-powered applications at the show, along
AI SERVER DEMAND: ‘Overall industry demand continues to outpace supply and we are expanding capacity to meet it,’ the company’s chief executive officer said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported that net profit last quarter rose 27 percent from the same quarter last year on the back of demand for cloud services and high-performance computing products. Net profit surged to NT$44.36 billion (US$1.48 billion) from NT$35.04 billion a year earlier. On a quarterly basis, net profit grew 5 percent from NT$42.1 billion. Earnings per share expanded to NT$3.19 from NT$2.53 a year earlier and NT$3.03 in the first quarter. However, a sharp appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar since early May has weighed on the company’s performance, Hon Hai chief financial officer David Huang (黃德才)
COLLABORATION: Softbank would supply manufacturing gear to the factory, and a joint venture would make AI data center equipment, Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) would operate a US factory owned by Softbank Group Corp, setting up what is in the running to be the first manufacturing site in the Japanese company’s US$500 billion Stargate venture with OpenAI and Oracle Corp. Softbank is acquiring Hon Hai’s electric-vehicle plant in Ohio, but the Taiwanese company would continue to run the complex after turning it into an artificial intelligence (AI) server production plant, Hon Hai chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) said yesterday. Softbank would supply manufacturing gear to the factory, and a joint venture between the two companies would make AI data
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