The Small and Medium Enterprise Administration (SMEA) on Monday unveiled a joint innovation center set up in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon.com Inc’s cloud-computing arm.
The new center is situated in the Start-up Terrace, an innovation park in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), and is aimed at fostering unicorn start-ups, the SMEA said.
AWS is not investing in the innovation center, but it is providing cloud-computing resources and other material to start-ups, as well as international marketing experience and training, SMEA Deputy Director-General Betty Hu (胡貝蒂) told the Taipei Times by telephone yesterday.
“They [start-ups] might have good ideas or products, but often lack consistent business models and financial planning capabilities,” Hu said, adding that the innovation center would provide a common training platform.
AWS corporate vice president and managing director for greater China Alex Yung (容永康) last week said that AWS would train about 2,000 professionals a year by holding courses, workshops and seminars at the center.
The SMEA said it is working on increasing the number of start-ups to 150 within three years from about 70 now.
The SMEA has also signed memorandums of understanding with the Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre and Thailand’s True Digital Park in order to boost exchanges between start-ups in the three nations, it said.
China’s economic planning agency yesterday outlined details of measures aimed at boosting the economy, but refrained from major spending initiatives. The piecemeal nature of the plans announced yesterday appeared to disappoint investors who were hoping for bolder moves, and the Shanghai Composite Index gave up a 10 percent initial gain as markets reopened after a weeklong holiday to end 4.59 percent higher, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dived 9.41 percent. Chinese National Development and Reform Commission Chairman Zheng Shanjie (鄭珊潔) said the government would frontload 100 billion yuan (US$14.2 billion) in spending from the government’s budget for next year in addition
Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) suffered its biggest stock decline in more than a month after the company unveiled new artificial intelligence (AI) chips, but did not provide hoped-for information on customers or financial performance. The stock slid 4 percent to US$164.18 on Thursday, the biggest single-day drop since Sept. 3. Shares of the company remain up 11 percent this year. AMD has emerged as the biggest contender to Nvidia Corp in the lucrative market of AI processors. The company’s latest chips would exceed some capabilities of its rival, AMD chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) said at an event hosted by
Sales RecORD: Hon Hai’s consolidated sales rose by about 20 percent last quarter, while Largan, another Apple supplier, saw quarterly sales increase by 17 percent IPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) on Saturday reported its highest-ever quarterly sales for the third quarter on the back of solid global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) globally, said it posted NT$1.85 trillion (US$57.93 billion) in consolidated sales in the July-to-September quarter, up 19.46 percent from the previous quarter and up 20.15 percent from a year earlier. The figure beat the previous third-quarter high of NT$1.74 trillion recorded in 2022, company data showed. Due to rising demand for AI, Hon Hai said its cloud and networking division enjoyed strong sales
TECH JUGGERNAUT: TSMC shares have more than doubled since ChatGPT’s launch in late 2022, as demand for cutting-edge artificial intelligence chips remains high Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday posted a better-than-expected 39 percent rise in quarterly revenue, assuaging concerns that artificial intelligence (AI) hardware spending is beginning to taper off. The main chipmaker for Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc reported third-quarter sales of NT$759.69 billion (US$23.6 billion), compared with the average analyst projection of NT$748 billion. For last month alone, TSMC reported revenue jumped 39.6 percent year-on-year to NT$251.87 billion. Taiwan’s largest company is to disclose its full third-quarter earnings on Thursday next week and update its outlook. Hsinchu-based TSMC produces the cutting-edge chips needed to train AI. The company now makes more