ECONOMY
Credit rating affirmed
Standard & Poor’s (S&P) yesterday affirmed Taiwan’s sovereign credit rating of “AA-,” its fourth-highest grade, and forecast the nation’s real GDP growth in the next four years would range between 2 and 2.5 percent annually. The international ratings agency said that it had kept a stable outlook on the nation’s sovereign ratings, affirming its “AA-” long-term and “A-1+” short-term unsolicited issuer credit ratings. “Taiwan’s exceptional external position, sound monetary management, and dynamic information technology companies in the private sector support the ratings. A moderate level of government debt and a small, open economy that is vulnerable to global economic volatility are credit constraints that temper these strengths,” S&P said in a statement.
LENSES
Largan shares rise 3.17%
Handset camera lens supplier Largan Precision Co (大立光) yesterday saw its shares rise 3.17 percent to end at NT$4,875 on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, the highest ever in the company’s history, boosting its market capitalization to NT$653.93 billion (US$21.54 billion). Largan, a supplier to Apple Inc, remains the most expensive stock on the local market as investors remain optimistic about the company’s business outlook for dual camera lenses.
INSURANCE
Nan Shan plan approved
The Financial Supervisory Commission yesterday approved Nan Shan Life Insurance Co’s (南山人壽) plan to acquire troubled Chaoyang Life Insurance Co (朝陽人壽). Nan Shan Life on Jan. 16 won the Taiwan Insurance Guaranty Fund (保險安定基金) bailout auction of Chaoyang Life for NT$200 million. The deal, which will see Nan Shan take over Chaoyang’s assets, debts and existing policyholders, is expected to be completed on May 2, the commission said in a statement. Chaoyang was put under government receivership on Jan. 26 last year.
CRIME
XPEC presses charges
XPEC Entertainment Inc (樂陞科技) yesterday said its board has approved a move to press charges against former chairman Aaron Hsu (許金龍) and former board director Hsieh Tung-po (謝東波), demanding compensations of US$54.68 million from Hsu and NT$3.5 million from Hsieh to protect shareholders’ interests. XPEC said the decision was made at the request of the Securities and Futures Investors Protection Center, as Hsu and Hsieh were indicted by the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office on charges of manipulating the company’s stock price.
ELECTRIC VEHICLES
Delta to install chargers
Delta Electronics Inc (台達電), the nation’s leading power solutions provider, on Thursday said it is collaborating with Pan German Motors Ltd (汎德), the sales agent for BMW AG in Taiwan, to install Delta’s electric vehicle charging solutions in the Taipei 101 parking lot.
UTILITIES
Taiwater to maintain prices
The Ministry of Economic Affairs on Thursday said that Taiwan Water Corp (Taiwater, 台灣自來水) is to maintain water prices until the end of the year. The ministry’s remarks came after Taiwater chairman Kuo Chun-ming (郭俊銘) on Wednesday said the company planned to raise prices for customers using more than 51,000 liters of water per month, in an effort to encourage water conservation. The company said it had not decided on the level of the price adjustment.
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