JAPAN
Spending drops 3.9% yearly
Household spending dropped 3.9 percent in May from a year earlier, far worse than market expectations of a 1.5 percent decline, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said yesterday. The drop marked the fourth consecutive monthly decline and suggests that hopes for a rise in consumption are unlikely to be met anytime soon. Consumers were particularly reluctant to spend on eating out, recreation and cultural activities, and clothing and footwear, ministry data showed.
UNITED STATES
Services index rises further
Service firms expanded at a surprisingly strong pace last month as companies saw gains in business activity and new orders. The Institute for Supply Management on Thursday said that its services index rose to 59.1, from 58.6 in May. The services sector, where most Americans are employed, has now expanded for 101 consecutive months, or more than eight years. Last month’s gain was stronger than expected. Many economists believed that the index reading might slip slightly.
COPYRIGHT
EU lawmakers reject law
Members of the European Parliament on Thursday rejected a highly controversial EU copyright law proposal that has pitted Beatles base guitarist and songwriter Paul McCartney against the creators of Wikipedia. Lawmakers meeting at the Strasbourg, France, parliament voted 318 against and 278 in favor, with 31 abstentions. The draft law was firmly resisted by major US tech giants, as well as advocates of Internet freedom. Lawmakers are expected to return to the plans, which are aimed at ensuring that creators of creative content are paid fairly, in September.
STEELMAKERS
Thyssenkrupp CEO to resign
Thyssenkrupp chief executive Heinrich Hiesinger has handed in his resignation less than a week after a merger of its steelmaking business with India’s Tata, creating Europe’s second-biggest steelmaker, the group said on Thursday. “The supervisory board will meet tomorrow [Friday] to discuss and decide on the request of Mr Heinrich Hiesinger,” Thyssenkrupp said in a statement, adding that Hiesinger was seeking to end his tenure by “mutual accord.” The firm gave no further information on his reasons for going.
MARINE TECHNOLOGY
Rolls-Royce sells unit
Kongsberg Gruppen ASA agreed to buy a marine business from Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC for £500 million (US$662 million), expanding in technology for ships. The Norwegian supplier to the oil and gas industry is to adjust the final purchase price based on its cash, debt and working capital when it concludes the deal, Kongsberg said in a statement yesterday. The purchase does not include Bergen Engines nor Rolls-Royce’s naval business. Kongsberg plans to finance the purchase with debt and a rights issue of 5 billion Norwegian kroner (US$622 million), it said.
AUTOMAKERS
VW probe gets green light
Investigators can examine internal documents seized last year from automaker Volkswagen AG (VW) as part of a probe into the diesel emissions scandal, the German Federal Constitutional Court said yesterday. The court dismissed a legal complaint from Volkswagen seeking to block authorities from using the documents for their investigation. In 2015, US authorities revealed that the company had used engine software to cheat on emissions tests.
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