TECHNOLOGY
HTC to partner Tate Modern
HTC Corp (宏達電) yesterday announced a partnership with Tate Modern, London, to use its HTC Vive virtual reality (VR) headset at an upcoming Modigliani exhibition, the first of its kind at the Tate Modern. “We are always looking to push creative boundaries, and we think this will be a fantastic opportunity to give the public a different and in-depth understanding of this much-loved artist through new technology,” Tate Modern director Frances Morris said in a joint statement. The Modigliani exhibition is to open to the public on Nov. 23 and run until April 2 next year, the statement said. HTC’s partnership with Tate Modern on VR technology marks the Taiwanese company’s latest efforts to expand its Vive technology into arts venues and events around the world, including the Tribeca Film Festival in New York and the Venice Biennale in Italy.
APPAREL
Sales hit by warm winter
The combined revenue of the nation’s retail clothing and fabrics sector contracted 2.2 percent year-on-year to NT$115.8 billion (US$3.82 billion) in the first five months of the year, negatively affected by higher winter temperatures that dragged on the sales of winter clothes, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. It was the first annual drop in the period since 2014, the Department of Statistics said in a statement. In addition to the weak sales performance of winter clothing, international fast-fashion brands’ slowing pace of outlet expansion also weighed on the year-on-year decline in revenue, the department said. Last year, the revenue of the retail clothing and fabrics sector rose 2.1 percent year-on-year to an historic high of NT$285.6 billion, mainly on growing demand for higher-priced functional clothing, the department said.
EMPLOYMENT
Students eye part-time jobs
Nearly 90 percent of university students are planning to work in temporary jobs during the summer holiday, hoping for an average monthly salary of NT$26,866, a yes123 survey said yesterday. The results showed that 88.4 percent of university students hope to have a part-time job during the summer vacation. The ratio hit a new high since 2012, exceeding the 86.2 percent recorded last year and 72.4 percent in 2015. The top five sectors in which students are seeking employment are hospitality and travel (38.8 percent), the general service sector (excluding hospitality and travel, 37 percent), culture (including tutoring, 25.4 percent), retail and trade (21.1 percent) and information technology and telecommunications (18.1 percent), the survey said. The survey found that 78.1 percent want to earn enough to pay their living expenses, while 72.4 percent want to save money. The survey was conducted from June 1 to June 15, with 1,316 valid samples. It had a margin of error of plus or minus-2.7 percentage points.
ELECTRONICS
Hon Hai shares hit new high
Electronics manufacturing giant Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) shares hit a six-year high yesterday, as foreign brokerages issued upbeat reports, urging investors to buy amid the manufacturer’s efforts to transform its business, dealers said. Hon Hai’s share price hit an intraday high of NT$121, the highest level since Feb. 9, 2011, when its shares closed at NT$120. Market capitalization of the shares breached NT$2.09 trillion in morning trading yesterday. The weighted index on the main board closed up 136.26 points, or 1.31 percent, at 10,513.96, the highest level in 27 years.
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