INDIA
Trade deficit with China cut
The nation has cut its trade deficit with China by the most in more than a decade, according to people familiar with the data, as it boosted exports amid a US-China trade dispute. Exports to China jumped 31 percent year-on-year to US$17 billion in the financial year ended March 31, the people said, asking not to be identified as the data is not yet public. In the process, it cut the bilateral trade deficit by US$10 billion to US$53 billion. The surge in exports was mainly due to greater demand for marine products, grapes, raw cotton and plastic raw materials: items that were casualties in US President Donald Trump’s trade dispute with Beijing. It was the second consecutive year that the nation’s shipments to China have grown by more than 30 percent. New Delhi has also used the opportunity to push for greater cooperation with China on trade, using talks for a Beijing-backed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership as a lever.
AVIATION
Lufthansa posts a loss
Deutsche Lufthansa AG reported a first-quarter loss because of rising fuel costs and downward pressure on fares, sending its shares plunging in a sign of deepening industry woes after the German airline cut its growth plans last month. The shares fell 5 percent in pre-market activity on Tradegate after the nation’s biggest carrier disclosed an adjusted loss before interest and taxes of 336 million euros (US$380 million). The downturn, which compared with earnings of 52 million euros a year earlier, was particularly stark because of strong results for the beginning of last year following the collapse of Air Berlin, Lufthansa said in a statement late on Monday. The loss comes after Lufthansa opted to pare planned capacity increases this summer to bolster prices and focus on profitability. The European airline industry is coming off a tough year, with bad weather and strikes among the factors hurting profit.
AUTOMAKERS
Lotus unveils ‘hypercar’
Lotus yesterday announced in Shanghai a concept for the first fully electric British hypercar, the Type 130. Unveiled on the morning of the first day of the Shanghai International Auto Show, the Type 130 would be the first all-new vehicle from the Hethel, England-based automaker in 11 years. The news arrived after word that Lotus parent company Geely Holding Group (吉利控股集團) would begin manufacturing vehicles in China, working from a new US$1.3 billion factory in Wuhan. A spokesman from Lotus declined to say when the factory would open, but said the new vehicle would not be built there, but at company factories in England.
AUTOMAKERS
Former VW CEO charged
German prosecutors have charged former Volkswagen AG (VW) chief executive Martin Winterkorn and four others with fraud in the emissions cheating scandal that has helped turn many Europeans against diesel engines and accelerated the push toward electric vehicles. Prosecutors on Monday said that Winterkorn knew about the scheme since at least May 2014 and failed to put a stop to it. That contradicted his claim that he did not learn about it until shortly before US investigators announced it in September 2015. Winterkorn resigned as chief executive five days later. VW has admitted installing software in its diesel vehicles that turned on pollution controls when they were being tested and switched them off during everyday driving.
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