CHINA
Securities official fired
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has sacked the assistant chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), the official Xinhua news agency reported yesterday, days after it was announced he was the subject of a graft probe. Zhang Yujun (張育軍) is under investigation for suspected “serious violation of discipline,” the party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said on Wednesday last week, using the euphemism it employs for corruption. Zhang is the first CSRC official to come under investigation amid the stock market turmoil, which started in June.
EQUITIES
Plan to sell Russell wavers
London Stock Exchange Group PLC’s plan to sell Russell Investments to China’s Citic Securities Co (中信證券) is faltering and might soon collapse, people with knowledge of the matter said. The plunge in the Chinese stock market since mid-June and investigations into some Citic Securities executives have derailed the discussions, the people said. China’s biggest listed brokerage had been in advanced talks to buy the fund management business for about US$1.8 billion, a person with knowledge of the matter said in July.
INTERNET
Deezer to sell shares
French music-streaming service Deezer yesterday said it plans to launch a public share offering on the Paris stock exchange in the hopes of consolidating its position in the online music market. Founded in 2007, the company has 6 million subscribers and 16 million individual users each month. Its main rival, Sweden’s Spotify Ltd, claims 75 million users, of whom 20 million subscribe to its paid version and is valued at more than US$8 billion.
LIFESTYLE
Snoop starts cannabis site
Snoop Dogg is rolling his love for cannabis into a new lifestyle Web site intended to be an online “encyclopedia” for anything anyone would want to know about pot. Merryjane.com went live on Monday, featuring a home page inviting people to apply for early access to a beta version of the platform. The full launch is expected next month. The rapper described it as an online venue for information, insights, news and business guidance about the marijuana world and includes celebrity allies such as Seth Rogen and Miley Cyrus.
REAL ESTATE
Mizuho to help Greenland
Greenland Holdings Corp (綠地控股), China’s biggest listed developer, said Mizuho Financial Group Inc is to help it with debt financing as the builder seeks overseas investment. The Japanese lender is to supply bond market and international capital market services to Greenland, according to an e-mailed statement on Monday. Mizuho is also to provide the developer with property investment targets in Japan and services in asset management, after the two agreed to cooperate on global businesses including financing, the statement said.
INTERNET
Kickstarter changes to PBC
Crowd-funding platform Kickstarter on Monday officially made social good part of its business model by changing its US corporate status. Kickstarter changed from a standard for-profit structure to being a public benefit corporation (PBC) that is out to make money, but bound to take into account the effects of business decisions on society as well as on shareholders, its founders said. Less than 1 percent of US companies have opted for PBC status, including Patagonia Inc, Kickstarter said.
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