CONGLOMERATES
GE may be fined over jobs
US conglomerate General Electric Co (GE) will have to pay nearly 34 million euros (U$39.43 million) in France if it fails to uphold its pledge to create 1,000 new jobs by the end of the year, French Minister of Labor Muriel Penicaud said on Sunday. GE made the promise as part of its 2014 purchase of Alstom’s power and electrical grid businesses, including its prized gas turbine operations, for 12.4 billion euros. Shortly after closing the deal the following year, GE announced plans to cut 6,500 power jobs in Europe because of falling oil and gas prices, and a further 12,000 job cuts in the sector were announced in December. GE has only created 323 new jobs so far. The contract called for a 50,000 euro penalty for every job not created, Penicaud said.
TECHNOLOGY
Google to invest in JD.com
Google yesterday said it would invest US$550 million in Alibaba’s (阿里巴巴) main rival JD.com (京東) as the US tech giant seeks to expand in Asia’s e-commerce markets. Under the partnership, JD.com products would appear on Google’s shopping service, while Google could apply the Chinese e-commerce company’s supply chain and logistics expertise to its technology. Google said that through the partnership, the company would explore new solutions to improve shopping experiences of consumers around the world.
AIRLINES
Neeleman plans new airline
David Neeleman, who started JetBlue Airways Corp with US$100 million in 2000, is raising money to launch a new low-cost carrier focused on secondary airports in the US, according to Airline Weekly. The airline, to be called Moxy Airways, has secured orders for 60 Bombardier CS300 aircraft, the trade journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The first would arrive in 2020. Moxy is attempting to raise US$100 million to begin services that same year, the journal said. Neeleman declined to comment and it is unclear how far along the airline is in its development. Neeleman also helped to set up Morris Air, WestJet Airlines Ltd and Brazil’s Azul SA.
MINING
India to sell coal stake
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration is planning to offload a stake in state-run Coal India Ltd to speed asset sales after a failed attempt to find a buyer for the cash-strapped national airline, people with knowledge of the matter said. The Department of Investment and Public Asset Management is finalizing the amount of stake to be offered in the fiscal year ending March 31, they said on condition of anonymity. If needed, the government could stagger the sale offer in two tranches, they said. The government holds more than 78 percent in Coal India. It had sold a 10 percent stake in January 2015.
EQUITIES
Thai contractors rebound
A revival in optimism about Thai infrastructure projects has helped shares of the nation’s contractors rebound from a record slide. The government was to unveil yesterday terms of reference for a 200 billion baht (US$6 billion) high-speed train project linking three international airports closest to Bangkok. A measure of construction and engineering companies has surged about 7 percent this quarter, making it the biggest gainer among the Stock Exchange of Thailand’s 28 industry sub-gauges. That marks a turnaround from the group’s worst ever slide of 18 percent in the previous quarter. The shares are a rare bright spot in Thai equities, with the SET Index down 4 percent since March.
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)