Inventec Corp (英業達) is optimistic about the growth momentum in its server and data center businesses this year and shrugging off concerns about a local rival poaching company talent, Inventec chairman Tom Cho (卓桐華) said on Friday.
“There were indeed some of our employees who went to another company... This might sound a bit callous toward our former colleagues, but I have to say that Taiwan’s best server talent is still at Inventec,” Cho told a news conference ahead of the firm’s annual employee banquet at Nangang Exhibition Hall on Friday last week.
Cho’s remarks confirmed market speculation that Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) last year lured sales staff and engineers working on server research and development from Inventec, including the company’s former head of sales, who was responsible for server orders from Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
“[You] should spend more resources on cultivating the strength of your own engineers and let them do their job,” Cho said, referring to Compal. “Do not use improper means to compete against other companies.”
Inventec has become a leader in the nation’s server industry because it spent years building its technological strengths and production capacity, Cho said.
Inventec’s server business accounted for more than 30 percent of the company’s revenue, totaling NT$467.51 billion (US$16.04 billion) last year, a company financial statement showed.
Using original design manufacturing as a basis for comparison, Cho forecast flat revenue for the company’s server-related products this year, compared with a year earlier, while expecting double-digit growth for its data center business.
Inventec’s data center clients include Amazon.com Inc, as well as China’s Baidu Inc (百度), Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) and Tencent Holdings Ltd (騰訊).
Compal president Ray Chen (陳瑞聰) on Friday last week said the company aims to narrow the losses from its server business to NT$300 million from last year’s NT$600 million.
Compared with its domestic peers, Compal is a latecomer to the server business, but expects it to become profitable from next year, Chen told a media gathering.
Shares of Inventec dropped 1.03 percent to NT$24.1, while Compal rose 1.4 percent to close at NT$21.7 in the local bourse yesterday. The TAIEX gained 0.67 percent.
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
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
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)