E-PAYMENTS
PChome InterPay approved
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) on Friday approved PChome InterPay Inc (國際連), the wholly owned subsidiary of PChomePay Inc (支付連), to conduct electronic payment business in Taiwan, making it the fourth local company to gain an operating license for third-party payment services. The services are to include collecting and making payments for real transactions as an agent, accepting deposits of funds as stored value funds, and transferring funds between e-payment accounts, PChome InterPay said in a statement. The company has paid-in capital of NT$501 million.
INVESTMENT
Fubon scraps Nanjing plans
Fubon Life Insurance (富邦人壽) on Friday said its board had decided to scrap a plan to form a 50-50 joint life-insurance firm in Nanjing, China, with Nanjing Zijin Investment Co (南京紫金投資) after waiting in vain for a concrete response from Chinese authorities for nearly five years. The company said it is instead applying for permission to invest up to 1.4 billion yuan (US$212.87 million) in Liaoning Chengda Co (遼寧成大), which is a state-owned trading conglomerate based in Dalian, China.
MEDIA
Netflix eyes expansion
Netflix Inc on Friday said that it is seeking local partners to support its expansion to Taiwan. Netflix declined to comment on any possible partnership with local telecom operators, such as Chuanghwa Telecom Co (中華電信). Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny, directed by action director Yuen Woo-ping (袁和平), is to be available worldwide for Netflix subscribers at the end of next month, Netflix chief communications officer Jonathan Friedland added in Taipei.
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