AIRLINES
EVA passenger count rises
EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) yesterday said that it has served its 10 millionth passenger, who was traveling from Osaka to Taoyuan on flight BR177. The nation’s second-largest airline announced that its passenger count in the first 11 months of the year rose by more than 10 percent to 9.18 million compared with 8.9 million last year and 8 million last year. EVA Air said that sales last month rose 1.34 percent year-on-year to NT$11.3 billion (US$342.1 million), with aggregate sales in the January-to-November period rising 3.27 percent from the previous year to NT$125 billion. EVA Air’s operations have grown steadily since the company became a Star Alliance member in June 2013, the carrier said.
TECHNOLOGY
ITRI establishes centers
The Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), Taiwan’s top technical researcher, has established two centers devoted to the development of intelligent microsystems and laser and additive manufacturing technologies in southern Taiwan. The move is based on the institute’s plan to put more resources into the fields of micro-electromechanical systems and lasers, ITRI chairman Tsay Ching-yen (蔡清彥) said yesterday at a ceremony introducing the two facilities’ directors. Tsay said he hoped the two centers — the Smart Microsystems Technology Center and the Laser and Additive Manufacturing Technology Center — would fuel the development of a new industry in the nation’s south. Cao Fang-hai (曹芳海), a deputy executive director of ITRI’s Southern Region Campus, said the centers would try to expand development in international markets, adding that the laser sector is expected to see mass production in the future. As for additive manufacturing, which refers to a process by which digital 3D design data are used to build up a component in layers by depositing material, Cao said the field’s technologies are not yet mature, but represent an opportunity.
DIPLOMACY
TPEx inks SME deal
The Taipei Exchange (TPEx) signed a memorandum of understanding with Oman’s Muscat Securities Market on Monday to improve cooperation between small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the two nations. TPEx president Lee Chi-hsien (李啟賢) said boosting growth of SMEs has become a policy that is promoted worldwide. Through the signing of the document, the TPEx hopes to create new opportunities and markets for Taiwanese companies and take the diligence and creativity of SMEs to the international stage, Lee said.
STOCKMARKET
TAIEX drops 0.77%
The TAIEX dropped 0.77 percent yesterday to below 8,300 points, dragged by large-cap stocks across the board as investors took cues from the losses on Wall Street overnight, dealers said. Turnover remained thin, keeping local share prices in consolidation mode as many foreign institutional investors have been away from the trading floor during the Christmas season, dealers said. The TAIEX closed at 8,293.91 yesterday on turnover of NT$52.48 billion. Ta Ching Securities (大慶證券) analyst Andy Hsu said that while many foreign institutional investors have been away for holidays, others have been cutting their holdings in local shares, in particular large-cap electronics stocks. According to the TWSE, foreign institutional investors sold a net NT$989 million worth of shares on the local main board yesterday.
PERSISTENT RUMORS: Nvidia’s CEO said the firm is not in talks to sell AI chips to China, but he would welcome a change in US policy barring the activity Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said his company is not in discussions to sell its Blackwell artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Chinese firms, waving off speculation it is trying to engineer a return to the world’s largest semiconductor market. Huang, who arrived in Taiwan yesterday ahead of meetings with longtime partner Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), took the opportunity to clarify recent comments about the US-China AI race. The Nvidia head caused a stir in an interview this week with the Financial Times, in which he was quoted as saying “China will win” the AI race. Huang yesterday said
Nissan Motor Co has agreed to sell its global headquarters in Yokohama for ￥97 billion (US$630 million) to a group sponsored by Taiwanese autoparts maker Minth Group (敏實集團), as the struggling automaker seeks to shore up its financial position. The acquisition is led by a special purchase company managed by KJR Management Ltd, a Japanese real-estate unit of private equity giant KKR & Co, people familiar with the matter said. KJR said it would act as asset manager together with Mizuho Real Estate Management Co. Nissan is undergoing a broad cost-cutting campaign by eliminating jobs and shuttering plants as it grapples
The Chinese government has issued guidance requiring new data center projects that have received any state funds to only use domestically made artificial intelligence (AI) chips, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. In recent weeks, Chinese regulatory authorities have ordered such data centers that are less than 30 percent complete to remove all installed foreign chips, or cancel plans to purchase them, while projects in a more advanced stage would be decided on a case-by-case basis, the sources said. The move could represent one of China’s most aggressive steps yet to eliminate foreign technology from its critical infrastructure amid a
MORE WEIGHT: The national weighting was raised in one index while holding steady in two others, while several companies rose or fell in prominence MSCI Inc, a global index provider, has raised Taiwan’s weighting in one of its major indices and left the country’s weighting unchanged in two other indices after a regular index review. In a statement released on Thursday, MSCI said it has upgraded Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country World Index by 0.02 percentage points to 2.25 percent, while maintaining the weighting in the MSCI Emerging Markets Index, the most closely watched by foreign institutional investors, at 20.46 percent. Additionally, the index provider has left Taiwan’s weighting in the MSCI All-Country Asia ex-Japan Index unchanged at 23.15 percent. The latest index adjustments are to
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