Chinese smartphone vendor Xiaomi Corp (小米) yesterday said it has hired former MediaTek Inc (聯發科) co-chief operating officer (COO) Jeffrey Ju (朱尚祖) as a partner in its investment department, ending months-long speculation about Ju’s next move.
Ju in July resigned as head of MediaTek’s mobile phone chip business after the firm tapped Rick Tsai (蔡力行) as its new co-CEO to help regain lost market share.
Ju was granted the position of senior consultant for MediaTek after stepping down as co-COO.
Speculation had emerged that Ju might go to work for Chinese mobile phone maker Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp (歐珀移動), a client of MediaTek.
Xiaomi is one of MediaTek’s many clients in China, but is now developing its own mobile processors in a bid to differentiate itself from other brands.
“With 20 years of experience in consumer electronics and wireless communications... Ju’s strong leadership and broad connections will help Xiaomi achieve greater success in investing in different industries,” Xiaomi founder Lei Jun (雷軍) said on the QQ messaging app.
Ju, who joined MediaTek in 1999, helped set up its smartphone chip department in 2010, Lei said, adding that under his leadership, the department has expanded to generate yearly revenue of US$4 billion.
His efforts greatly helped MediaTek become the world’s second-largest smartphone chip supplier, Lei said.
Xiaomi has invested in about 200 companies in areas ranging from “smart” hardware and Internet of Things applications to financial technology, the Beijing-based company said.
In May, Xiaomi signed an agreement with Hubei Yangtze River Belt Industrial Fund (湖北省長江產業基金) to jointly raise 12 billion yuan (US$1.81 billion), with an aim to invest in advanced manufacturing, new materials and cutting-edge technologies.
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