SOUTH KOREA
Exports post annual drop
Exports fell 0.9 percent last month from a year ago, in large part because fewer working days that month hampered production, state data showed yesterday. Last month’s exports amounted to US$47.88 billion, compared with US$48.31 billion a year ago, the Ministry of Trade said, blaming a four-day holiday early in the month. Imports amounted to US$42.53 billion, up 0.3 percent from US$42.39 billion a year ago, leaving a US$5.3 billion trade surplus, the ministry said. It was the 28th consecutive month that Asia’s fourth-largest economy has posted a trade surplus. Exports to Europe and the US rose thanks to growing shipments of cars and petrochemical products, while those to top trading partner China slowed, as did those to Japan, it added. Last year, overall exports grew 2.1 percent, while imports fell 0.8 percent for a trade surplus of US$44.09 billion. The ministry forecasts a 6.4 percent rise in exports this year.
PORTUGAL
Lisbon mulls tax hikes
The government is considering raising taxes after the country’s highest court rejected austerity measures included in its budget for this year. The cuts are part of Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho’s plans to help the economy emerge from the painful economic constraints imposed by a three-year international bailout that saved the country from collapse. The Constitutional Court ruled on Friday that cuts to public-sector wages, pensions and health allowances are unconstitutional. The decision leaves a budgetary shortfall and Passos Coelho says he “cannot commit to not raising taxes” as the cuts were worth about 750 million euros (US$1 billion).
INTERNET
Pirate Bay cofounder caught
One of the founders of file-sharing Web site Pirate Bay has been arrested in southern Sweden to serve an outstanding sentence for copyright violations after being on the run for nearly two years, Swedish police said on Saturday. Peter Sunde had been wanted by Interpol since 2012 after being sentenced in Sweden to prison time and fined for breaching copyright laws. “We have been looking for him since 2012,” Swedish National Police Board spokeswoman Carolina Ekeus said. “He was given eight months in jail so he has to serve his sentence.” Four men linked to Pirate Bay were originally sentenced to one year in prison and a fine of 32 million kronor (US$4.8 million). An appeals court later reduced the prison sentences by varying amounts, but raised the fine to 46 million kronor.
FINANCE
Icahn denies Clorox probe
Billionaire investor Carl Icahn said he is not aware of any investigation involving him and golfer Phil Mickelson regarding trades related to Clorox Co and Dean Foods Co, and called a report by the Wall Street Journal “completely irresponsible.” “I never purchased or have been involved in any way with Dean Foods,” Icahn said in a telephone interview. “While I have obviously heard of Phil Mickelson, I have never spoken to him or met him.” Icahn, Mickelson and sports gambler William Walters are targets of an insider trading probe by US authorities, the Journal reported on Friday, citing people briefed on the investigation. The investigation is looking at large option trades in the days before Icahn’s US$10.2 billion offer for Clorox in July 2011, as well as trading patterns related to Dean Foods, the Journal said.
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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