Wowprime Corp’s (王品) board yesterday elected Chen Cheng-hui (陳正輝) as the company’s chairman and dispelled rumors of discord between Chen and former chairman Steve Day (戴勝益).
The appointment of Chen came two weeks after Day unexpectedly announced his plans to take early retirement amid speculation of internal rifts following last year’s food safety incidents that damaged the Wowprime brand name.
Wowprime runs 13 restaurant brands, including the Wang Steak (王品台塑牛排) and Tasty (西堤) steakhouses, and Japanese eatery Tokiya (陶板屋). The company operates about 400 restaurants either side of the Taiwan Strait, including about 100 in China.
Photo: Wang Min-wei, Taipei Times
“My decision to pass on the torch ahead of schedule is driven by the need to ensure the sustainable development of our enterprise,” Day said in a statement.
“I have full confidence in the team that will take over leadership duties, as they are seasoned veterans who had been with the company since its founding, and I trust that they will continue to expand on the company’s strategic vision and corporate culture,” he said. “I am at ease with my decision.”
Chen, 54, said he will leverage his experience in Wowprime’s China operations and integrate the company’s resources on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
Wowprime shares rose 3.97 percent to NT$249 in Taipei trading yesterday as investors welcomed the leadership change.
In the last 12 months, the company’s shares have dropped 41.13 percent, worse than the broader market’s 7.46 percent fall over the same period, as investors felt uneasy with the company’s unsuccessful brand launches and continued margin deterioration due to rising food and labor costs.
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
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
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