Japan
Kuroda wins second term
The Japanese parliament yesterday approved Bank of Japan (BOJ) Governor Haruhiko Kuroda for a second term, with a mandate to battle deflation and pep up the world’s third-biggest economy. Kuroda, 73, a former president of the Asian Development Bank, is on course to become the longest-serving BOJ governor if he completes a full second five-year term. Kuroda took the helm in March 2013 with a mandate to deploy what was called a monetary “bazooka” to stoke life into the moribund economy. Market experts say that with inflationary shoots beginning to spring forth and the economy picking up, Kuroda’s greatest future challenge would be exiting the easing policy.
TRADE
Singapore exports slump
Singapore’s non-oil domestic exports slumped the most since October 2016, signaling growth risks to one of Asia’s most trade-dependent economies. Exports dropped 5.9 percent last month from a year earlier, with shipments of electronics plunging the most since July 2016, while sales of non-electronics also fell. While fluctuations might be expected given the Lunar New Year holiday effect, a third straight monthly decline in electronics — which led gains for much of last year — adds to signs that exports could slow this year.
TECHNOLOGY
Digital sector grows 5.6%
The US digital economy grew at an average annual rate of 5.6 percent in the 11 years through 2016, compared with 1.5 percent growth in the economy as a whole, a report issued on Thursday by the US Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis showed. The sector accounted for US$1.2 trillion, or 6.5 percent, of GDP in 2016, it said. It supported 5.9 million jobs in 2016, the equivalent of 3.9 percent of total US employment, with employees in the sector earning on average US$114,275 annually, more than 72 percent above the average compensation for US workers.
BATTERIES
Gupta plans world’s biggest
Sanjeev Gupta plans to snatch the world’s biggest battery crown from Tesla Inc founder Elon Musk. Simec Zen Energy, controlled by the UK executive’s GFG Alliance, agreed to build a 120-megawatt lithium-ion battery at Port Augusta in South Australia, State Premier Jay Weatherill said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. While no timeline was given for completion, the battery size would exceed Musk’s 100-megawatt unit in the same state’s outback, which holds the current record. Other rivals might also overtake Musk, including a South Korean project. GFG said the battery would help power a 200-megawatt solar farm at its Whyalla steelworks.
TELECOMS
Elliott urges change at Italia
Billionaire Paul Singer’s Elliott Management Corp stepped up its campaign for a board overhaul at Telecom Italia SpA amid a deepening fight for dominance with the company’s biggest investor. The New York-based activist hedge fund on Thursday accused the company’s largest shareholder, Vivendi SA, of running it in a way that is counter to the interests of other investors. Elliott said Telecom Italia should consider an initial public offering for its landline business, while criticizing numerous decisions by the company, including a contentious joint venture with Canal Plus that has riled Italian regulators.
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