EMC Corp, the world's biggest maker of data-storage computers and programs, has started using Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) as its first supplier of finished equipment.
"This is the first time that EMC's gone to a company to do subassembly, final assembly and test for everything," Steven Fitz, Asia Pacific president of EMC, said in an interview yesterday in Hong Kong. "There's a lot more potential for them to do a lot more for us." Hon Hai is making data-storage equipment selling for US$5,000 that EMC is selling to small and medium-sized business clients.
The new product is helping EMC win market share from its closest competitors, which are Hewlett-Packard Co in hardware and Veritas Software Corp in programs, according to Gartner Inc.
EMC's cheapest computer two years ago cost US$350,000. EMC may use Hon Hai, Taiwan's biggest electronics company, to make new products that sell for less than US$5,000, Fitz said. EMC chose Hon Hai as a supplier in part because both companies count Dell Inc and Intel Corp as business partners, according to Fitz.
Hon Hai competes with Singapore-based Flextronics International Ltd, the world's largest maker of electronics for other companies, and second-ranked Solectron Corp of Milpitas, California.
CHIP HANG-UP: Surging memorychip prices would deal a blow to smartphone sales this year, potentially hindering one of MediaTek’s biggest sources of revenue MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest smartphone chip designer, yesterday said its new artificial intelligence (AI) chips used in data centers are to account for 20 percent of its total revenue next year, as cloud service providers race to deploy AI infrastructure to meet voracious demand. MediaTek is believed to be developing tensor processing units for Google, which are used in AI applications. While it did not confirm such reports, MediaTek said its new application-specific IC (ASIC) business would be a new growth engine for the company. It again hiked its forecast for the addressable ASIC market to US$70 billion by 2028, compared
Motorists ride past a mural along a street in Varanasi, India, yesterday.
MediaTek Inc (聯發科), the world’s biggest smartphone chip supplier, yesterday said it plans to double investment in data center-related technologies, including advanced packaging and high-speed interconnect technologies, to broaden the new business’ customer and service portfolios. The chip designer is redirecting its resources to data centers, mainly designing application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC) with artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities for cloud service providers. The data center business is forecast to lead growth in the next three years and become the company’s second-biggest revenue source, replacing chips used in smart devices, MediaTek president Joe Chen (陳冠州) told a media event in Taipei. “Three or four years
AT HIGH CAPACITY: Three-month order visibility on stable customer demand would push factory utilization to between 80 and 85 percent, Vanguard’s president said Foundry service provider Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) yesterday said it is unable to fully satisfy surging demand for chips used in artificial intelligence (AI) servers and data centers, amid an AI infrastructure investment boom that is crowding out production of less advanced chips. Vanguard is facing an “undersupply of chips” made using mature process technologies, due to strong demand for AI products and improving demand from customers in the commercial, industrial and auto sectors, which are digesting excess inventory to a healthier level, company chairman Fang Leuh (方略) told a virtual investors’ conference. However, Vanguard gave a more conservative view on
RSS