ENERGY
Rebates on new appliances
Until June 2021, consumers buying new energy-saving home appliances will be eligible for an excise tax rebate of up to NT$2,000 per item, the Ministry of Finance said on Saturday. The tax incentive is limited to purchases of new refrigerators, air conditioners, heaters and dehumidifiers that meet the Bureau of Energy’s Level 1 or 2 energy-efficiency standards. The appliances must be for personal use, not resale, the ministry said.
WIND POWER
Industry body inaugurated
The development of offshore wind power could create investment of NT$1 trillion (US$31.7 billion) and 20,000 job opportunities in Taiwan, Minister Without Portfolio Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said at the inauguration of the Taiwan Offshore Wind Industry Association on Thursday. The government has set a goal of reaching 5.5 gigawatts of installed capacity by 2025, which could result in 19.8 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, Kung said. The government also expects offshore wind power development to help cut carbon emissions by 10 million tonnes per year by 2025.
ELECTRONICS
Nvidia to cultivate AI talent
Nvidia Corp is to train more than 5,000 artificial intelligence (AI) and deep-learning workers within three years in Taiwan in collaboration with the Industrial Development Bureau, the company said at an AI summit on Wednesday. Nvidia has already collaborated with Taiwanese companies on various AI-related applications for flaw detection, predictive maintenance, smart production and autonomous machine control. Nvidia global vice president and Taiwan general manager Eunice Chiu (邱麗孟) said AI solutions would help transform and upgrade Taiwan’s manufacturing industry.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day