MANUFACTURING
Taihan selling idle property
Taihan Precision Technology Co (台翰精密科技) yesterday said that its board of directors has approved a plan to dispose of idle buildings and land in New Taipei City’s Wugu District (五股) for NT$310 million (US$10.3 million). The designer and manufacturer of plastic products and molds said that it expects to book a disposal gain of NT$213 million from the transaction, and plans to use the proceeds to strengthen its financial structure, and boost shareholder interest and returns. While the COVID-19 outbreak in China has disrupted production in global supply chains, it has had limited effects on the company, Taihan Precision said in an e-mail.
TESTING SERVICES
Sporton net income drops
Sporton International Inc (耕興), which provides professional product testing and certification services, yesterday said net income for last year decreased 4.13 percent year-on-year to NT$671.26 million, or earnings per share of NT$7.27. Revenue fell 0.39 percent to NT$2.99 billion, it said. The drop was due to lower orders from China amid a US-China trade dispute, as well as greater operating expenses, including deployment costs for a Silicon Valley lab, Sporton said. About 50 to 60 percent of employees at its labs in Kunshan and Shenzhen, China, have returned to work since operations resumed last week amid the COVID-19 outbreak, it said, adding that it would use a flexible deployment of personnel in Taiwan, China and the US to reduce risks caused by economic uncertainties.
NETWORKING
CyberTAN restarts factory
CyberTAN Technology Inc (建漢科技), a maker of broadband and wireless networking equipment, yesterday said that its factory in Chongqing, China, has been approved to resume work following an extended Lunar New Year holiday ordered by the government to curb the spread of COVID-19. CyberTAN is a subsidiary of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密). Its plant in Vietnam has operated normally, while its Chinese operations received the notification of approval to restart work, effective yesterday, it said. Separately, SolidWizard Technology Co (實威國際), which provides 3D scanners and services, said that its Shanghai-based subsidiary, UnitedWizard Technology Co (研威貿易), has also been given permission to restart work.
TOURISM
Costa Cruises drops sailings
Italian cruise operator Costa Crociere SpA yesterday announced it has canceled all of its voyages scheduled to depart from Taiwan next month to protect passengers’ interests amid fears over the spread of COVID-19. The Costa neoRomantica and the Costa Venezia were due to sail from Taiwan, said the firm, which operates as Costa Cruises. Customers who have paid for cruises on those ships can, up to March 31, receive a full refund of the fare and port taxes, it said. The company also said it would continue to strengthen epidemic-control measures to ensure the safety of all passengers and crew on cruises outside of Taiwan that have not been canceled, including barring passengers and crew who have been in or transited through China, Hong Kong and Macau. In related news, Eastar Jet Inc’s nonstop charter flights between Hualien and South Korea for the spring season have been suspended until March 28 due to the outbreak, Hualien County Department of Tourism Deputy Director Chang Chih-shiang (張志翔) said on Tuesday. The suspension is expected to reduce tourist arrivals in Hualien by 10,000, Chang 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