ELECTRONICS
LED penetration to hit 23%
The global market penetration rate of LED commercial lighting will soar this year amid growing popularity of the product, LEDinside said in a recent research note, adding that the growth of the global LED commercial lighting market penetration rate will reach 23 percent by the end of the year. The global LED tube market totaled US$2.58 billion last year and will increase substantially to US$8.87 billion by 2018, with Europe, North America and China set to become major markets within the next five years, the market researcher said. Manufacturers should grab this opportunity and improve their products, such as boosting luminous efficacy, lifespan and light quality, LEDinside said. Luminous efficiency, lighting uniformity, color rendering and lifespan are still considered key technologies, it added.
FOOD
Show draws 1,500 exhibitors
This year’s annual Taipei International Food Show, scheduled to open on June 25, has attracted more than 1,500 local and foreign exhibitors occupying more than 3,700 booths, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said yesterday in a statement. The four-day event, which coincides with four other related packaging, processing, machinery and halal food shows, will run until June 28 at the Taipei World Trade Center Nangang Exhibition Hall and Exhibition Hall 1. It is expected to attract more than 6,500 international buyers and 58,000 local visitors, TAITRA said. Each day between 1pm and 2pm, there will be promotions for 30 national pavilions, the organizers said. In addition to new product launches, the organizers will also host cooking shows and other promotional activities during the show.
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