UNITED STATES
Top rating at risk: Fitch
The top “AAA” long-term debt rating of the nation will be in danger if lawmakers do not raise borrowing limits in a timely fashion, Fitch Ratings Ltd said on Wednesday. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the Treasury has until October before exhausting the “extraordinary measures” it put in place in March, when the country reached its US$19.8 trillion borrowing limit. Lawmakers return from recess on Sept. 5, making the window for action even tighter. “If the debt limit is not raised in a timely manner prior to the so-called ‘X’ date, Fitch would review the US sovereign rating, with potentially negative implications,” the agency said in a statement.
MEDIA
Ten Network bid approved
News Corp cochair Lachlan Murdoch yesterday got the green light to bid for Australia’s third-largest television network, a deal that would see his media empire extend its huge reach there. Australia’s competition watchdog said it would not oppose the potential takeover of troubled broadcaster Ten Network, but added approval would be subject to a shake-up in Canberra’s strict media ownership laws. Ten has been on air since 1964, but like other media organizations has struggled with slumping advertising revenues and in June was placed in voluntary administration. The network posted a net loss of A$232 million (US$183 million) in the September last year-to-February period.
CHINA
US trade probe criticized
The government has criticized a US decision to launch a trade probe of Beijing’s technology policy as a violation of the global trading system and said it will “resolutely defend” any Chinese companies that are hurt. Ministry of Commerce spokesman Gao Feng (高峰) yesterday said the probe announced by US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer improperly applies US law instead of international rules to trade. Lighthizer announced this week his office would launch an investigation requested by US President Donald Trump into whether Beijing improperly requires foreign companies to hand over technology as a condition of market access.
ELECTRONIC
Toshiba in chip unit talks
Toshiba Corp is in advanced discussions to sell its chips unit to a consortium that includes Western Digital Corp, switching from a previously announced preferred bidding group led by Bain Capital, Kyodo News reported on Wednesday. The board of the Japanese electronics manufacturer was to meet yesterday to discuss the new offer by a group that includes Western Digital, KKR & Co, Innovation Network Corp of Japan and other investors, the news agency reported without citing sources. Their bid is for **y**1.9 trillion yen (US$17.4 billion), Kyodo said.
UNITED KINGDOM
EU workers have Brexit jitters
Nearly half of businesses operating in the country’s food supply chain say EU workers are thinking about leaving because of uncertainty around Brexit, an industry survey showed yesterday. Forty-seven percent of companies in the country’s food supply chain — which includes farms, food processors, supermarkets and restaurants — said their EU workers were considering their future as a direct result of the June last year Brexit vote, according to the survey compiled by several trade bodies. Nearly a third of respondents to the survey, conducted between March and May, said some EU staff had already departed. Thirty-six percent of companies in the survey said their businesses would be unviable without access to EU workers.
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