SHIPPING
Maersk shuts down systems
A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S has shut down systems across its operations to contain a cyberattack against its computer network as it assesses the full impact. The company said its Maersk Line vessels are maneuverable, able to communicate and its crews are safe, while APM Terminals is impacted at a number of ports, according to a statement. “At this point our entities Maersk Oil, Maersk Drilling, Maersk Supply Services, Maersk Tankers, Maersk Training, Svitzer and MCI [Maersk Container Industry] are not operationally affected,” the company said.
TRANSPORT
Stagecoach’s profit drops
British transport company Stagecoach Group PLC yesterday reported a 15.3 percent drop in its full-year pretax profit as economic conditions hurt its domestic bus business. The company reported a pretax profit of £158.7 million (US$203.42 million) for the year ended April 29. Full-year revenue rose to £3.94 billion from £3.87 billion the previous year. “Looking ahead, we remain cautious on the short-term outlook for revenue trends and operating profit in our bus and rail markets in the UK,” the company said in a statement.
UNITED KINGDOM
FCA supports single fee
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) yesterday said in a report it supports the use of a single fee that includes asset management charges, transaction costs and intermediary fees so investors know what they are paying upfront. The agency also recommended that the Treasury look at bringing investment consultants into the FCA’s regulatory perimeter. The FCA started looking at the asset management sector in 2015 to better understand how managers compete in the nation’s £7 trillion industry and whether they were adequately motivated to control costs. Interim findings published by the regulator in November last year found weak price competition was leading to investors paying higher fees and charges that were not justified by bigger returns.
UNITED KINGDOM
AI to boost economies: study
Artificial intelligence (AI) is actually set to boost the economy, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP. The majority of kingdom’s economic gains over the period to 2030 would come from increasing consumer demand thanks to AI driving a greater choice of products, increasing personalization and making them more affordable over time, the research published yesterday showed. While Britain could see a 10 percent increase in GDP through 2030, the locations likely to see the biggest upswings are China and North America, which would be boosted 26 percent and 14.5 percent resepectively, the study said.
TELECOMS
Alibaba to buy ZTE arm
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) is closing in on a deal to acquire Chinese telecoms gear maker ZTE Corp’s (中興) software subsidiary, an acquisition that could help strengthen its global Internet computing business, people familiar with the deal said. China’s leading e-commerce operator has been in negotiations to buy ZTEsoft Technology Co for months and is nearing an agreement, according to one of the people, who asked not to be identified discussing a private deal. Alibaba could pay from 2 billion yuan to 3 billion yuan (US$294.13 million to US$441.2 million) for a division that provides software support and services to carriers around the world, another person said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts