Gigabyte Technology Co Ltd (技嘉) yesterday said it aims to tap the fast-developing content creators’ market as it launched its new AERO series of laptops on the first day of Computex Taipei.
With the new laptop series, Gigabyte hopes to improve the marketing of its notebooks, while also looking to redefine the PC industry, chairman Dandy Yeh (葉培城) said at the launch.
The AERO series is designed to please users’ eyes, Gigabyte mobility business center vice president Steven Chen (陳俊丞) said.
Photo: Wu Pei-hua, Taipei Times
The PC market has gradually become saturated with performance-driven laptops and so the focus is slowly shifting back to being user-friendly and visually pleasing, he said.
“The easier [a laptop] is to use, the more people would appreciate it,” Chen said.
“Most content creators do not care about the hardware, but about the interface,” he added.
Intel Corp general manager of premium and laptop segments Frederik Hamberger said that while most major PC manufacturers still have their eyes set on the gaming segment of the PC market, the content creators’ market segment is rapidly expanding, reaching more than 130 million users to date, compared with 580 million paying PC gamers.
Although content creators represent a significant market potential, the market used to ignore the demand, Hamberger said.
“Three or four years ago, when content creators would go into a [PC] shop, they would be directed to the gaming laptops if they’re lucky,” he said at the launch.
Many content creators purchased gaming laptops, as few other options were available, he said.
Just 29 percent of users purchase gaming laptops for gaming, while up to 19 percent purchase gaming laptops for content creation only, Hamberger added.
Gigabyte’s new AERO 15 uses Microsoft Corp’s cloud computing service, Microsoft Azure, which would collect users’ data and automatically reconfigure the laptops to adapt to content creators’ different needs, Microsoft vice president for worldwide device sales Alvaro Celis said.
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