SWINE FEVER
Trade talks possibly affected
African swine fever, which has been spreading through northeastern China, has the potential to affect trade talks if outbreaks of the deadly disease become widespread, said Brett Stuart, founding partner of Global AgriTrends, a market intelligence firm focused on global agriculture. It is not possible to predict with any certainty how the disease will spread — there could be sporadic outbreaks with an insignificant national effect — but the density of hogs and the scale at which they are raised in China creates a serious risk, Stuart said.
BANKING
Deutsche Bank to cull 1,000
Deutsche Bank AG plans to cut about 1,000 jobs at the headquarters of its retail division, people briefed on the matter said. That would be approximately one in five of the people working at its recently merged German retail unit, split between Frankfurt am Main and Bonn. Most of the cuts would aim to eliminate duplicate back-office and middle-office functions, the people said. The number has yet to be negotiated with the powerful workers’ councils. It is not clear how many of the job cuts at the German retail headquarters would happen by the end of next year.
TECHNOLOGY
Airbnb sues New York City
Airbnb Inc sued the city of New York on Friday, denouncing as “an extraordinary act of government overreach” a new law forcing home-sharing platforms to disclose data about hosts. It was a dramatic escalation in the battle between the US$30 billion company and authorities in the US’ most populous city, amid a global backlash against “sharing economy” start-ups disrupting traditional industries. The rental Web site filed the lawsuit in a federal court in Manhattan, asking for the law to be scrapped and branding it a product of a “multimillion-dollar campaign funded by the city’s powerful hotel lobby.”
BANKING
Ex-trader faces deportation
Kweku Adoboli, a former UBS Group AG trader jailed for causing a US$2.3 billion loss to the bank, is set to be deported to his native Ghana, British Minister of State for Immigration Caroline Nokes said, three years after he was let out of prison. British Member of Parliament Hannah Bardell, of the Scottish constituency where Adoboli lives, told British Prime Minister Theresa May that it is “incredible” that the UK Home Office wants to deport Adoboli to a country that he left as a child. However, Nokes in a letter to Bardell on Friday said that the Home Office was “in no way obliged” to delay deportation proceedings while Adoboli seeks legal representation.
GREEN ENERGY
Exxon puts out Texas tender
Exxon Mobil Corp has been looking to buy renewable energy for delivery in Texas, people familiar with the matter said. The largest US oil company sent out a request for proposals with a June 8 deadline, inviting solar or wind power suppliers to pitch contracts that would last 12, 15 or 20 years, according to a document obtained by Bloomberg and people with knowledge of the matter. Exxon, based in Irving, Texas, is seeking at least 100 megawatts and would consider proposals for more than 250 megawatts.
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