MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the nation’s biggest handset chipmaker, yesterday signed an agreement to invest 300 million yuan (US$48.9 million) in a Chinese government fund in an effort to benefit from China’s fast-growing semiconductor industry.
The fund, initiated by the Shanghai City Government and Chinese venture capital firm Summitview Capital (武岳峰資本), will have 3 billion yuan in funding during the initial phase and will gradually increase to 10 billion yuan, MediaTek said in a statement.
Other than MediaTek, Shanghai Jiading Venture Capital Fund (上海嘉定創業投資), Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (中芯), Tsinghua University’s Tsinghua Holdings Co (清華控股) and Knight Capital of the US also joined as investors in the fund.
“By investing in this fund, MediaTek aims to deepen the cooperation and partnership between Taiwan and China and to gain a better market position in the world’s semiconductor industry,” company chairman Tsai Ming-kai (蔡明介) said in the statement.
Over the past few years, the collaboration between Taiwan and China in the information technology sector has helped boost the growth of companies from both sides, Tsai said.
The partnership has also helped certain Chinese companies rise to be some of the world’s biggest brands, he said.
MediaTek counts China’s leading mobile phone makers — including China’s Lenovo Group (聯想) and Xiaomi Corp (小米) — as its clients.
Xiaomi ranked as the world’s third-largest smartphone vendor last quarter, tracking behind Samsung Electronics Corp and Apple Inc, according to market researcher International Data Corp’s (IDC) tallies.
Lenovo ranked fourth, IDC figures showed.
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents would supplant smartphones as the center of people’s digital lives, fundamentally reshaping personal devices and driving a major computing upgrade cycle, Qualcomm Inc CEO Cristiano Amon said yesterday. In his keynote speech for this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei, Amon said that the rise of "agentic AI" — AI systems capable of reasoning, planning and carrying out tasks autonomously — would transform how people interact with technology across phones, PCs, vehicles and wearable devices. Describing the technology as the next major evolution in computing, Amon said that "2026 is the year of agents.” For decades, smartphones have sat
The average pay to employees by ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控) was the highest among the companies listed on the local main board last year, while contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) ranked seventh, the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) said on Monday. Data compiled by the exchange showed ASE Technology, the world’s largest chip packaging and testing services provider, paid its employees an average of NT$6.28 million (US$199,746) last year, up 40 percent from a year earlier. TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker and the most profitable company in Taiwan, paid its employees NT$4.09 million on average, up
RSS