INVESTMENT
Firm’s NT$1bn plan accepted
The Ministry of Economic Affairs on Thursday said that it had approved Hua Mei Optoelectronics Science Technology Co’s (華美光學) Taiwan investment plan. The firm is to invest more than NT$1.1 billion by setting up a plant in the Tree Valley Park (樹谷園區) in Tainan, as well as upgrading the company’s existing production lines in the city’s Anding District (安定), the ministry said in a statement. Hua Mei’s investment is expected to provide 180 job opportunities, it said.
STOCK EXCHANGE
Listed firms see revenue rise
Companies listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange saw combined revenue for last month rise 0.44 percent to NT$2.76 trillion (US$87.99 billion) from a year earlier, the exchange said on Tuesday. Among them, 478 firms reported year-on-year sales increases, while 454 reported declines, it said. Firms that posted increases were mainly in the information services sector, the automotive industry and the biotech and healthcare sectors, while those that posted declines were in the electrical cable, electric machinery and plastics industry sectors, it said.
TECHNOLOGY
E Ink to unveil tech at expo
E-paper display supplier E Ink Holdings Inc (元太科技) on Thursday said that it would display a new printing technology at the Touch Taiwan Exhibition, to be held at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center from Wednesday to Friday next week. The new technology, licensed from HP Inc, is a rewritable, digital, electronics-free display medium geared toward smart office, transportation, retail, healthcare and Internet of Things applications, the company said in a statement. The technology can also be implemented onto small and large-format rewritable e-paper displays, it 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
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
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)