AUTOMOBILES
BYD cars to debut in Q1
Electric cars developed by China-based BYD Co (比亞迪) will make their debut in Taiwan early next year, the vehicle’s local distributor announced yesterday. BYD Taiwan, a joint venture of BYD Hong Kong and Taiwan Solar Energy Co (元晶太陽能), said it had received orders from a local taxi association for more than 1,500 BYD e6 cars, with delivery scheduled to begin in the first quarter of next year. The company said it has commissioned a local automaker to assemble the first BYD e6 vehicles to be sold in the nation to speed up regulatory inspections and approvals. The BYD e6 is an all-electric crossover car that the carmaker says has a nominal range of 300km on a single charge (in an eTaxi duty-cycle), though the range may fall short of that under actual driving conditions.
AVIATION
AIDC, GE extend contract
Aerospace Industrial Development Corp (AIDC, 漢翔航空), the nation’s biggest aircraft maker, yesterday said it recently signed a contract with General Electric Co (GE), including orders worth up to NT$9.5 billion (US$323.18 million) for aircraft engine parts. The contract, valid from 2015 through 2018, extends AIDC and GE’s long-term cooperation that began in 1997 and will also help bring in business opportunities for local electronics supply chains, the corporation said in a statement posted on its Web site.
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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