The nation’s machinery makers should lead in the era of “Industry 4.0” to avoid wasting resources, the head of the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said yesterday, adding a call for close collaboration among research institutes, academia and the government.
“The industrial end is the side that knows where the demands are,” TAMI chairman Alex Ko (柯拔希) said on the sidelines of the Taipei Manufacturing Technology Show at the Taipei World Trade Center’s Nangang Exhibition Hall.
Ko said that Taiwan has advantages in the IT industry, which machinery players could use to create new opportunities in smart manufacturing.
Photo: CNA
He said IT companies such as Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) and Advantech Co (研華) have joined the trend.
The association billed last year as the first year of “smart machinery” manufacturing and is expecting more orders of such products in the next two years, Ko said.
“We have done more than enough to promote Industry 4.0 as the main axis of the machinery industry,” Ko said, adding that now is the time to sell such products to the world.
Fatex Co (發得科技) is one of the companies taking part in the exhibition that has joined the Industry 4.0 bandwagon, Ko said.
The company’s production line is equipped with automatic virtual metrology (AVM), with many of its smart applications destined to reach the Turkish market by the end of this month and Indian customers next month, he said.
Taiwan’s machinery equipment exports fell 6.8 percent annually to US$20.1 billion (NT$620.8 million) last year, and the lackluster performance continued in the first quarter, with exports dropping 9.1 percent annually to US$4.89 billion, government data showed.
Overall, the machinery industry reported output of NT$955 billion last year, down 3 percent from a year earlier, Ko said.
However, Ko is optimistic about the industry’s outlook this year, citing more than NT$15 billion in orders received last month at a machine tool exhibition in Shanghai and a few billion New Taiwan dollars in orders collected at a plastics and rubber exhibition in Shanghai the same month.
In addition, the incoming Democratic Progressive Party administration, which is to take office on May 20, has called smart manufacturing one of the nation’s five “creative industries.”
“We hope investment by the government will go straight to the machinery industry, which would help it become the engine to drive everyone who is onboard,” Ko said.
Meanwhile, Taiwanese machine tool makers are eyeing aerospace opportunities, valued at US$5.2 trillion in business potential per year, TAMI machine tool committee chairman David Chuang (莊大立) said at a separate event.
Chuang said the industry is facing challenges from Japanese and South Korean peers in terms of less favorable tariffs and foreign-exchange rates, and therefore local companies should seek to cooperate to boost competitiveness.
In the first quarter, the nation’s machine tool exports dropped 20.7 percent annually to US$634 million due to depreciation of the yen and won against the US dollar, TAMI said.
STEADY: Prices are to rebound following inventory rebuilding demand, TrendForce said, with Samsung Electronics Co further trimming capacity as it slashes DDR4 lines The contract prices of DRAM chips are to rise by as much as 18 percent sequentially this quarter — the first price upticks in about eight quarters — driven mainly by inventory rebuilding demand for DRAM chips used in mobile devices and PCs, TrendForce Corp (集邦科技) projected yesterday. The price rebound is led by a quarterly increase of mobile DRAM chips, which are to climb between 13 percent and 18 percent quarter-on-quarter this quarter, which has not been seen since the fourth quarter of 2021, the Taipei-based market researcher predicted. Likewise, the price of mainstream PC DDR4 DRAM is expected to bounce
SOLID FOUNDATION: Given its decades of expertise in megatronics, manufacturing and robotics, Japan has the wherewithal to create its own AI, Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp plans to help build an artificial intelligence (AI) tech-related ecosystem in Japan to meet demand in a country eager to gain an edge in this emerging technology. The US company will seek to partner with Japanese research organizations, companies and start-ups to build factories for AI, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday during opening remarks in a meeting with Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura. The company is to set up an AI research laboratory, and invest in local start-ups and educate the public on using AI, Huang said. Huang earlier this week met with Japanese Prime
A Hong Kong court postponed a court hearing on troubled Chinese property developer Evergrande Group’s (恆大集團) winding-up petition scheduled for yesterday until Jan. 29. Evergrande is trying to win support from its creditors for a plan to restructure more than US$300 billion in debt to stave off liquidation. The company’s lawyer told the court it was requesting an adjournment to “refine” its new debt restructuring plan. The Hong Kong High Court has postponed the hearing over Evergrande’s potential liquidation several times. Judge Linda Chan (陳靜芬) had said in October that yesterday’s hearing would be the last before a decision is handed down. Chan
Huawei Technologies Co (華為) is among a field of “very formidable” competitors to Nvidia Corp in the race to produce the best artificial intelligence (AI) chips, Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday. Huawei, Intel Corp and an expanding group of semiconductor start-ups pose a stiff challenge to Nvidia’s dominant position in the market for AI accelerators, Huang told reporters in Singapore. Shenzhen-based Huawei has grown into China’s chip tech champion and returned to the spotlight this year with an advanced made-in-China smartphone processor. “We have a lot of competitors, in China and outside China,” Huang said. “Most of our competitors
RSS