FOODMAKERS
Namchow eyes listing
Namchow Holdings Co (南僑投資控股) yesterday said that it has submitted an application to be listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange following the high-profile debut of Foxconn Industrial Internet Co (FII, 富士康工業互聯網), a subsidiary of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), on the market. Namchow Food Group (Shanghai) Co (上海南僑食品集團), which is 96.15 percent-owned by its Taiwanese parent, has submitted an initial public offering application to the China Securities Regulatory Commission, Namchow Holdings said in a filing with the Taiwan Stock Exchange. Namchow said the Shanghai listing would help accelerate its expansion in China, and provide it greater brand recognition and access to investment and talent.
PHARMACEUTICALS
SynCore to issue new shares
SynCore Biotechnology Co (杏國新藥), a new drug development subsidiary of Sinphar Group (杏輝醫藥集團), on Tuesday said that its shareholders approved plans to launch a private placement funding round. The plan to issue no more than 14 million new common shares, which was approved by SynCore’s board of directors last month, got the green light from shareholders at the company’s annual general meeting in Taipei. New drug development is a lengthy and capital-intensive process, and new funding is required to support drugs in the pipeline, the company said.
TECHNOLOGY
Microsoft, school ink deal
Microsoft Corp yesterday inked a partnership to develop Taiwan’s artificial intelligence (AI) talent pool with Taichung-based Asia University. The program aims to develop AI applications on speech rehabilitation, voice assistants and unstaffed libraries. The partnership is part of Microsoft’s efforts to cultivate AI talent in Taiwan by letting students to apply their learning to pave the way for a much-needed industrial transformation.
TAXATION
Claw machine revenue soars
Tax revenue from arcade claw machines surged in the first five months of this year following a resurgence in their popularity, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. Revenue from the machines between January and last month totaled NT$86.88 million (US$2.88 million), topping last year’s total annual revenue of NT$85.9 million, the ministry said. The number of claw machine arcades surged to 6,409 as of the end of last month, compared with 4,181 at the end of last year, the ministry said. Arcade claw machines account for about NT$1.6 billion in tax revenue for the nation, ranking fourth in the entertainment tax category, it said.
EQUITIES
Shares stage rebound
Shares in Taiwan yesterday staged a technical rebound from a plunge on Tuesday, as select large-cap stocks in both the electronics and non-technology sectors attracted bargain hunting, dealers said. However, the gains were limited, as market sentiment remained uneasy over escalating trade tensions between the US and China, as well as lingering concern over fund outflows from the nation in the wake of the weakness of the New Taiwan dollar, they said. The TAIEX closed up 0.21 percent at 10,927.44 on turnover of NT$178.06 billion. A dealer said he suspected that government-led funds were buying non-technology shares in a bid to help the equity market emerge from a rout the previous session.
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