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.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained