AUTOMAKERS
Ford to revamp plant
Ford Motor Co said on Thursday it would invest US$600 million to upgrade a Kentucky plant into the US maker’s highest-volume plant in the world. Ford said it would transform its plant in Louisville into a state-of-the-art facility that will start building the next-generation Escape sport utility vehicle (SUV) late next year. Ford said its Louisville Assembly Plant, which has been building the Ford Explorer SUV since 1989, will close during the upgrade and its production shifted to Chicago. When the plant reopens late next year, it will operate on two production shifts, instead of the current one.
ELECTRONICS
Dell eyes Compellent
Dell Inc is close to acquiring data storage provider Compellent Technologies Inc for about US$876 million, the computer maker said on Thursday. Dell fell short in its effort to expand in the storage business earlier this year when it lost the bidding for 3Par Inc to rival Hewlett Packard Co, which ended up paying US$2.35 billion. Now, Dell said it has a tentative agreement to buy 3Par competitor Compellent Technologies Inc, which is based in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, for US$27.50 per share. The company cautioned that a deal may still not happen.
RETAIL
Borders Q3 loss doubles
Borders Group Inc said on Thursday its third-quarter loss roughly doubled as its traditional book sales continued to fall because of tough competition from online retailers and discount stores and growing challenges from electronic books. Borders reported a loss of US$74.4 million, or US$1.03 per share. That compares with a loss of US$37.7 million, or US$0.63 per share in the quarter a year earlier. Its revenue fell 18 percent, to US$470.9 million from US$571.4 million. The report comes two days after activist investor William Ackman offered to finance a Borders bid for its much larger rival, Barnes & Noble Inc. Borders CEO Mike Edwards reiterated earlier statements that he welcomes Ackman’s participation.
FINANCE
MasterCard seals purchase
MasterCard Worldwide is buying the prepaid cash-card business of foreign exchange group Travelex Ltd for ￡290 million (US$459 million), boosting its presence in a fast-growing financial services segment. The deal is MasterCard’s second effort this year to expand its international and emerging market business, where it has more room to compete against arch-rival Visa Inc. In October, MasterCard paid US$520 million for the British online payment services company DataCash. Prepaid cards are one of the fastest growing segments of the financial services industry. MasterCard forecast prepaid volumes would reach more than US$840 billion by 2017.
INDIA
Industrial output accelerates
The country’s industrial output accelerated sharply in October, spurred by a robust manufacturing sector and higher demand during the country’s religious festival season, data showed yesterday. Output from the country’s factories, mines and utilities jumped by 10.8 percent in October from a year earlier, according to the statistics office, beating financial market expectations of an 8.5 percent rise. The data marked a strong pick-up from 4.4 percent year-on-year industrial output growth announced in September. The data came days after India’s government forecast economic growth this fiscal year to March 31 next year, could cross the 9 percent mark.
COMPETITION: AMD, Intel and Qualcomm are unveiling new laptop and desktop parts in Las Vegas, arguing their technologies provide the best performance for AI workloads Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD), the second-biggest maker of computer processors, said its chips are to be used by Dell Technologies Inc for the first time in PCs sold to businesses. The chipmaker unveiled new processors it says would make AMD-based PCs the best at running artificial intelligence (AI) software. Dell has decided to use the chips in some of its computers aimed at business customers, AMD executives said at CES in Las Vegas on Monday. Dell’s embrace of AMD for corporate PCs — it already uses the chipmaker for consumer devices — is another blow for Intel Corp as the company
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday said it is teaming up with Nvidia Corp to develop a new chip for artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers that uses architecture licensed from Arm Holdings PLC. The new product is targeting AI researchers, data scientists and students rather than the mass PC market, the company said. The announcement comes as MediaTek makes efforts to add AI capabilities to its Dimensity chips for smartphones and tablets, Genio family for the Internet of Things devices, Pentonic series of smart TVs, Kompanio line of Arm-based Chromebooks, along with the Dimensity auto platform for vehicles. MeidaTek, the world’s largest chip designer for smartphones
BRAVE NEW WORLD: Nvidia believes that AI would fuel a new industrial revolution and would ‘do whatever we can’ to guide US AI policy, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Tuesday said he is ready to meet US president-elect Donald Trump and offer his help to the incoming administration. “I’d be delighted to go see him and congratulate him, and do whatever we can to make this administration succeed,” Huang said in an interview with Bloomberg Television, adding that he has not been invited to visit Trump’s home base at Mar-a-Lago in Florida yet. As head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, Huang has an opportunity to help steer the administration’s artificial intelligence (AI) policy at a moment of rapid change.
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