Local chipmaker Vanguard Inter-national Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) yesterday rejected speculation that the Cabinet -- one of its major shareholders -- would nominate a new candidate to replace chairman Lin Chuan (林全) after the Chinese Nationalist Party's (KMT) victory in the presidential election.
"The report about the personnel changes involving Vanguard chairman Lin Chuan is mere media speculation. It is groundless," Vanguard said in an e-mailed statement.
The company's remarks came after the Chinese-language newspaper Commercial Times reported yesterday that Lin could step down in response to the shuffle in the nation's political landscape.
JOINT DECISION
Two years ago, major shareholders the Democratic Progressive Party's Cabinet and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC,
The Cabinet owns a controlling 16 percent stake in Vanguard via a venture capital fund called the Development Fund.
The fund said it would offer its full support to Lin to retain his post of Vanguard's chairman as he has made great contributions to safeguarding shareholders' interests by pushing for better financial results, a statement released yesterday said.
SOLID SUPPORT
TSMC, which holds a 36 percent share of Vanguard, also sided with Lin.
"Dr (Chuan) Lin's performance over the past two years as Chairman of Vanguard International Semiconductor has been excellent and TSMC supports his continued service as chairman of Vanguard," TSMC chairman Morris Chang (
Vanguard's net income surged 43 percent last year to reach NT$4.32 billion (US$144 million) or NT$2.53 per share, compared with NT$3.02 billion, or NT$1.8 a share in 2006.
Shares of Vanguard rose 0.47 percent, or NT$0.1, to NT$21.6 yesterday on the GRETAI Securities Market, defying a 0.79-percent loss on the benchmark TAIEX index.
AI SPLURGE: The four major US tech companies have lost more than US$950 billion in value since releasing earnings and outlooks, while equipment makers were gaining Four of the biggest US technology companies together have forecast capital expenditures that would reach about US$650 billion this year — a flood of cash earmarked for new data centers and all the gear within them. The spending planned by Alphabet Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Meta Platforms Inc and Microsoft Corp, all in pursuit of dominance in the still-nascent market for artificial intelligence (AI) tools, is a boom without a parallel this century. Each of the companies’ estimates for this year is expected either near or surpass their budgets for the past three years combined. They would set a high-watermark for capital spending
China’s top chipmaker has warned that breakaway spending on artificial intelligence (AI) chips is bringing forward years of future demand, raising the risk that some data centers could sit idle. “Companies would love to build 10 years’ worth of data center capacity within one or two years,” Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯) cochief executive officer Zhao Haijun (趙海軍) said yesterday on a call with analysts. “As for what exactly these data centers will do, that hasn’t been fully thought through.” Moody’s Ratings projects that AI-related infrastructure investment would exceed US$3 trillion over the next five years, as developers pour eye-watering sums
Bank of America Corp nearly doubled its forecast for the nation’s economic growth this year, adding to a slew of upgrades even after a rip-roaring last year propelled by demand for artificial intelligence (AI). The firm lifted its projection to 8 percent from 4.5 percent on “relentless global demand” for the hardware that Taiwanese companies make, according to a note dated yesterday by analysts including Xiaoqing Pi (皮曉青). Taiwan’s GDP expanded 8.63 percent last year, the fastest pace since 2010. The increase “reflects our sustained optimism over Taiwan’s technology driven expansion and is reinforced by several recent developments,” including a more stable currency,
COLLABORATION: Taiwan and the US could jointly find solutions to weaknesses in supply chain resilience for critical materials, focusing on mining and initial refinement Taiwan is likely to purchase rare earths from the US in the future, and is also in talks with Australia and Canada to strengthen global rare earth supply chain security, Minister of Economic Affairs Kung Ming-hsin (龔明鑫) said yesterday. Taiwan and the US last month concluded the sixth Economic Prosperity Partnership Dialogue, during which both sides signed a joint statement endorsing the principles of the Pax Silica Declaration, pledging to deepen cooperation in areas including critical minerals. At the time, Kung said the two sides would establish working groups to advance cooperation in areas including artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure, critical materials and
RSS