A group of local and foreign contractors yesterday urged the government to consider building “intelligent bridges” when reconstructing structures destroyed by Typhoon Morakot in southern Taiwan.
London-based Arup Group Ltd, which is known for its design of the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne and the “Bird’s Nest” in Beijing, said yesterday it was willing to share its architectural expertise and take part in the reconstruction of Shuangyuan Bridge (雙園大橋), which connects Kaohsiung and Pingtung counties, as a modern cable-stayed bridge pre-installed with a monitoring system.
HIGH-TECH
“Such a high-tech bridge, pre-installed with a global positioning system [GPS], will signal an alert to ensure the safety of bridge users,” Arup vice chairman Andrew Chan (陳嘉正) told a media briefing yesterday.
Based on data collected by the GPS and weather conditions, such as forecast rain and wind velocity, the bridge’s administrator can monitor and decide when to close the bridge, he said.
The monitoring system can also provide a health reading of the bridge during routine maintenance, he said.
Chan, however, yesterday said it was premature to estimate the cost of building such a bridge.
Tseng Ching-tsung (曾景琮), vice president of RSEA Engineering Corp (榮民工程公司), said the government should not hold separate bids for the design and construction of the bridge because it creates problems for contractors who may have to contend with an “infeasible design.”
SINGLE BID
Instead, the government should combine the two into a single bid open to design-and-construction teams to accelerate and ensure efficient construction, he said.
Chiu Fu-sheng (邱復生), chairman of Taiwan Land Development Corp (台開), which is a local partner of Arup, yesterday expressed interest in working as a coordinator for the bridge project.
However, he said it was too early to say whether all three companies would jointly bid for the project.
He also said the companies’ proposed bridge could be a model for the rebuilding of 70 bridges that collapsed in the wake of the typhoon.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San
Clambering hand-over-hand, sweat dripping into his eyes, a durian laborer expertly slices a cumbersome fruit from a tree before tossing it down to land with a soft thump in his colleague’s waiting arms about 15m below. Among Thailand’s most famous and lucrative exports, the pungent “king of fruits” is as distinctive in its smell as its spiky green-brown carapace, and has been farmed in the kingdom for hundreds of years. However, a vicious heat wave engulfing Southeast Asia has resulted in smaller yields and spiraling costs, with growers and sellers increasingly panicked as global warming damages the industry. “This year is a crisis,”