UTILITIES
No strike: Taipower union
The Taipower Labor Union yesterday called off plans for a strike after the Ministry of Economic Affairs invited union representatives to join discussions on privatizing the nation’s electricity supply industry. Union representatives said after a meeting with Minister of Economic Affairs Lee Chih-kung (李世光) that the ministry had agreed to allow union members participate in discussions of proposed amendments to the Electricity Act (電業法). The amendments, if approved by the Cabinet and the legislature, would pave the way for the privatization of Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電).
BANKING
OBUs’ assets fall in May
The 62 offshore banking units (OBUs) of banks operating in Taiwan posted total assets of US$190.173 billion in May, down US$67 million from the previous month, the central bank said in a statement yesterday. The OBUs of 37 Taiwanese banks held US$160.848 billion in assets, while foreign banks’ 25 OBUs had US$29.325 billion in assets, the central bank said, without elaborating on the reason for the decline in total assets. The OBUs’ lending made up about 40.8 percent of their total assets, with interbank lending and deposits accounting for 21.2 percent. Securities investments accounted for an additional 19.6 percent, the central bank said.
TECHNOLOGY
Viking expects synergy boost
Viking Tech Corp (光頡科技), a supplier of resistors and inductors, yesterday said its revenue could grow by a double-digit percentage this year from last year’s NT$1.549 billion (US$47.98 million), as the company starts to see synergy from its integration with Guangdong Fenghua Advanced Technology Holding Co (廣東風華高新科技). Last year, Viking sold a 40 percent stake to Guangdong Fenghua at NT$29.8 per share, making the Chinese firm its largest shareholder. In the first five months of the year, Viking’s cumulative revenue totaled NT$695 million, up 8.55 percent from a year ago. Viking’s shareholders approved the company’s proposal to pay dividends of NT$2.5 per share.
SOLAR ENERGY
Gintech’s US plant starts up
Solar cell maker Gintech Energy Corp (昱晶) commenced operations of a new solar power plant in the US this week, in a move to further diversify its business portfolio. The US$30 million power plant is expected to generate an annual revenue of NT$100 million, said that G.D. Development Corp (昱鼎), a Gintech joint venture with CTCI Corp (中鼎工程) is in charge of operating the plant. The plant has an annual capacity of 9.5 megawatts and is able to generate 12,000 megawatt hours a year, G.D. Development said in a statement on Wednesday. Gintech shares yesterday rallied 6.73 percent to end at NT$26.15 in Taipei.
HOSPITALITY
FDC seeks primary listing
Hotel and restaurant operator FDC International Hotels Corp (FDC, 雲品國際) yesterday submitted its primary listing application to the Taiwan Stock Exchange, hoping to debut its shares on the main bourse by the end of this year. FDC is currently trades on the Emerging Stock Market, a preparatory board for the nation’s two main bourses. The company, which runs the five-star hotel Fleur de Chine (日月潭雲品酒店) near Sun Moon Lake and the buffet restaurant Giardino in New Taipei City’s Sinjhuang District (新莊), reported NT$555 million in revenue in the first five months of the year, up 7.36 percent from a year ago.
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