EasyCard Corp (悠遊卡) yesterday said that it is close to resolving a dispute that has prevented use of EasyCards on the Kaohsiung MRT (KMRT) system’s light rail line. EasyCards were not among the accepted payment platforms when the system began charging fares at the beginning of this month.
EasyCard had declined to pay a NT$20 million (US$663,350) fee to fund the installation of kiosks for passengers to top up their cards, as it deemed the cost too high.
The fee was calculated based on EasyCard’s dominant 78.8 percent share of the nation’s market for electronic stored-value cards in terms of issuance and transaction volume, the KMRT has said.
However, EasyCard said that the fee should be based on the card’s actual ridership, which is about 20 percent in Kaohsiung.
Following a mediation session with the government on Thursday last week, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications’ Department of Railways and Highways sided with the Taipei-based firm, EasyCard chairman Kenneth Lin (林向愷) said at a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
EasyCard has proposed paying NT$6 million to build the kiosks and NT$3 million in activation fees, Lin said, adding that it would provide further payments if ridership of its cards exceeds 20 percent.
As back-end systems are in place, payment via EasyCards would be available on the light rail line after the KMRT provides its consent, he said.
“We have shown our efforts to build goodwill in the negotiation and are awaiting the KMRT’s response,” Lin said, adding that the dispute would likely be resolved before the end of this year.
In related news, Taipei Fubon Commercial Bank (台北富邦銀行) and its affiliate Taiwan Mobile (台灣大哥大) yesterday launched a co-branded EasyCard that enables SIM-based payments with smartphones.
The card allows users to top up their EasyCards from their smartphones through a credit card payment in Fubon Bank’s wallet app.
The feature aims to remedy the inconvenience of finding kiosks or service counters to add funds to EasyCards.
More than 200,000 SIM-based EasyCards are expected to be issued by the end of the year, EasyCard vice president Lin Chi-liang (林季良) said.
Fubon Bank said it also plans to launch a credit card aimed at SIM-based EasyCard users, which is to offer several promotional rewards, including 10 percent cash rebates on balance replenishments.
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