FRANCE
Foreign investors gather
Nearly 140 chief executives from companies around the world are to gather at the Versailles Palace outside Paris tomorrow, as the French government steps up efforts to attract more foreign investors. French President Emmanuel Macron orchestrated what is being billed as an “attractiveness summit” as executives converge for the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next week. A handful of economic accords are to be announced, including a major investment in “traditional industry” and two in “high-tech and artificial intelligence,” an official in the president’s office said.
SPAIN
Fitch upgrades debt rating
Fitch Ratings on Friday upgraded Spain’s sovereign debt rating, pointing to the country’s growing economy and improving fiscal health. The economic impact of the Catalonia region’s effort to declare independence last month have been “limited” so far, but the political standoff will weigh on growth, the agency said. Fitch raised Spain’s long-term debt rating one notch to “A-” with a stable outlook. Fitch said that Spain was enjoying the fruits of an economic recovery, with the economy likely having expanded by an average of 3.3 percent between 2015 and last year. The central government deficit is likely to hit its 3.1 percent target this year.
FINANCIAL SERVICES
CEO takes home huge bonus
Morgan Stanley boosted chief executive officer James Gorman’s compensation for last year by 20 percent to US$27 million, the most pay he has received since taking the helm eight years ago. Gorman, 59, got a US$12.8 million long-term incentive, US$6 million of deferred cash, US$5.6 million cash bonus, US$1.5 million salary and restricted shares worth almost US$1.2 million, bank spokesman Wesley McDade said. Last year, Morgan Stanley had record revenue from wealth management and stabilized its fixed-income division after restructuring. This week, its market value eclipsed that of rival Goldman Sachs Group Inc for the first time in a decade.
AUTOMAKERS
Start-up hunts funding
Byton (拜騰), a Chinese electric car start-up founded by former BMW AG executives, is seeking about US$400 million in a new round of funding, people with knowledge of the matter said. The Nanjing-based company, which showcased a concept car at the CES in Las Vegas this month, has been reaching out to potential investors to gauge their interest, according to the sources. Byton received US$200 million from a Suning Holdings Group Co (蘇寧集團) fund and some state-owned firms in Jiangsu Province, chief operating officer Daniel Kirchert said in August last year.
INTERNET
Missouri offer revealed
The US state of Missouri offered Amazon.com Inc nearly US$2.5 billion in incentives spread over 10 years in its failed bid to lure the company’s second headquarters to the state, according to figures released on Friday by the state Department of Economic Development. The state proposed building an “innovation corridor” between Kansas City and St Louis to provide employees and sites for Amazon. Amazon has said its second headquarters would bring up to 50,000 jobs and an investment of more than US$5 billion.
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