RETAIL
Eslite to exit Shenzhen
Eslite Spectrum Corp (誠品生活), which operates the Eslite bookstore chain (誠品書局), plans to close its Shenzhen outlet in China at the end of the year, citing the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and a change in international accounting rules, Eslite spokesman Wu Li-chieh (吳立傑) said in a statement on Friday. Eslite would record an asset impairment loss of NT$182 million (US$6.15 million) and an income loss of about NT$187 million, due to the early termination of its property lease, he said.
AUTOMAKERS
Tesla opens Tainan station
Electric vehicle maker Tesla Inc on Friday announced the opening of a V3 Supercharger station in Tainan, less than a week after its first electric vehicle charging station opened in Taipei. The new station, which has eight charging stalls, is at the Tainan Art Museum’s Building 2 and is larger than the facility at National Taiwan University in Taipei, which opened on Monday last week, with only three charging stalls. The V3 Supercharger stations, first unveiled last year, charge vehicles at a peak rate of 250 kilowatts (kW), compared with the previous generation, which had a peak rate of 145kW, Tesla said.
SEMICONDUCTORS
WPG revises T3EX bid
Semiconductor components distributor WPG Holdings Co’s (大聯大投資控股) board of directors has agreed to raise its public tender offer price for shares of freight forwarder and logistics operator T3EX Global Holdings Corp (台驊國際投控) to NT$32 per common share, up from the NT$28 per share it first proposed on June 18, WPG said on Saturday. The new offer price represents a premium of 4.74 percent compared with T3EX’s closing price of NT$30.55 on Friday.
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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