FINANCE
China deal ‘on track’
The Ministry of Economic Affairs yesterday said that the progress of negotiations on the cross-strait trade in goods agreement has not been affected by Tsinghua Unigroup Ltd’s (清華紫光) planned investments in local chip packager and testers. The ministry’s remarks came after the Central News Agency yesterday reported that the scheduled formal negotiation of the pact might be delayed or even canceled due to the Chinese company’s planned investments that caused negative sentiments between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait. The ministry said the Chinese company’s investments would not affect the trade talks between the two nations. It said the ministry still expects the next formal round of negotiation on the agreement to take place later this month in Taipei.
RENEWABLE ENERGY
Wind investment approved
Swancor Industry Co Ltd (上緯), which makes wind turbine rotor resin, yesterday said that its board has approved a NT$150 million (US$4.55 million) investment in its wind energy subsidiary Formosa I Wind Power Co (海洋風力發電) by subscribing to its new common shares. Swancor is scheduled to operate two offshore wind turbines in Taiwan in the third quarter of next year and another 30 wind turbines in the fourth quarter of 2019 via Formosa I Wind Power.
SHIPPING
FE-WCSA set to resume
Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp (陽明海運) yesterday announced that its Far East and West Coast of Latin America (FE-WCSA) service would be resumed later this month. However, the company will be terminating its South America service loop (SA2) which it jointly operates with South Korea’s Hanjin Shipping Co Ltd and Hyundai Merchant Marine after completion of the last round voyage from Kaohsiung today. In place of SA2, Yang Ming will join Taiwan’s Evergreen Marine Corp (長榮海運) and Wan Hai Lines Ltd (萬海航運), Singapore’s Pacific International Lines and China’s COSCO Group in operating two Far East and South America services called the SA4 and SA6.
CHIPMAKERS
UMC plans expansion
United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the nation’s second-biggest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that its board has approved a capital expenditure budget of NT$12.57 billion to fund the expansion of new capacity, according to a company statement submitted to the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The board also gave the go-ahead to subscribe for new shares of Mie Fujitsu Semiconductor Ltd, UMC said. UMC plans to subscribe for 8.45 million new shares of Mie Fujitsu for about ¥5 billion (US$41 million). UMC is set to hold a 15.6 percent stake in Mie Fujitsu.
CHIPMAKERS
TSMC to optimize chips
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to benefit from more smartphone brands’ decision to begin developing their own in-house mobile application processor chips, amid a slowdown in demand growth in the sector that began last year, TrendForce analyst Avril Wu (吳雅婷) said yesterday. Major smartphone manufacturers have been hoping to gain product differentiation and cost savings by developing their own chips, she said. TSMC is the first choice for many clients, which hopes to optimize their chips through the Taiwanese giant’s advanced 16-nanometer and integrated fan-out fabrication technologies.
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