The government yesterday unveiled plans for a national investment firm to help transform the economy.
Under the auspices of the National Development Council (NDC), the firm is to combine resources from the public and private sectors to promote transformations across the “five plus two” sectors, as well as the adoption of high-value-added services and solution-oriented business models.
The “five plus two” industries refer to the development of an “Asian Silicon Valley,” “intelligent” machinery, “green” energy technology, biomedicine and national defense — plus setting up a new agricultural business model and a circular economy.
The company is to be capitalized at NT$250 million (US$8.22 million), and the plan is to raise NT$10 billion to run three industry-specific investment funds focusing on Internet of Things (IoT), biotechnology and other segments of the “five plus two” sectors.
Each of the funds would likely have a budget of between NT$2 billion and NT$4 billion, the council said.
With an initial investment of NT$100 million from the council, the government would hold a 40 percent stake in the company.
The council said it is also reaching out to state-run financial companies, such as Mega Financial Holding Co (兆豐金控), and venture investors such as Industrial Technology Research Institute.
David Weng (翁嘉盛), a major investor in the “Asian Silicon Valley” initiative who has been tapped to be the new firm’s president, confirmed that high-level discussions are under way to enlist Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) participation.
The company would also welcome foreign and Silicon Valley companies to participate in the funds, Weng said.
The fund focusing on IoT would be launched before the end of September, followed by a biotechnology fund before the end of this year, while a third fund would be launched in the first half of next year, he said.
The challenge lies in finding appropriate investors as opposed to fundraising, said former vice premier Wu Rong-i (吳榮義), who serves as board director at the company.
There are many private companies that can easily contribute NT$1 billion each to the funds and only 10 participants are required, Wu said, adding that companies have been “lining up to get in on the ground floor.”
Fubon Financial Holding Co (富邦金控) and some of its peers have set aside investment quotas for the funds, NDC Deputy Minister and company board director Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said.
The company’s board also includes Patrick Yang (楊育民), a prominent figure in the biotechnology sector who has worked at Merck & Co, Roche Holding AG and Genentech Inc.
Jack Huang (黃日燦), a veteran mergers-and-acquisition lawyer, would serve as general counsel for the board.
Additional reporting by Liberty Times
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
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
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],”
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