Two Chinese production sites of iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and smaller rival Wistron Corp (緯創) have been named “global lighthouse” factories by the World Economic Forum (WEF).
Hon Hai, known outside of Taiwan as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), said that its factory in Chengdu had been chosen by the WEF among 15 factories worldwide on this year’s “global lighthouse” list.
The Chengdu plant is the second Hon Hai factory to be included on the list after its Shenzhen plant was chosen in 2019.
Photo: CNA
The WEF and consulting firm McKinsey & Co in 2018 began the list of “lighthouse” factories chosen for their digital transformation — plants that have adopted the latest technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT).
Since then, only 69 factories have been included on the list.
Hon Hai said that the choice of the Chengdu plant reflected the company’s efforts to boost the factory’s efficiency by 200 percent by adopting mixed reality, AI and IoT technologies at a time when the company was experiencing a rapid growth in its business, but faced a lack of skilled workers.
Mixed reality is the merging of “real” and “virtual” worlds to produce new environments and visualizations.
Hon Hai has been transforming itself from a pure contract manufacturer into a company that is able to integrate its hardware and software capabilities.
The company has been engaging with emerging technologies, such as 5G applications, electric vehicles and digital healthcare, to boost its profit margin in a competitive global market.
Wistron said that its factory in Kunshan that produces AI plus IoT devices had been chosen.
The factory’s inclusion on the WEF list represents a milestone for the firm, Wistron said, as it has been using new technologies to upgrade its facilities and lay a foundation for corporate sustainability.
NEW IDENTITY: Known for its software, India has expanded into hardware, with its semiconductor industry growing from US$38bn in 2023 to US$45bn to US$50bn India on Saturday inaugurated its first semiconductor assembly and test facility, a milestone in the government’s push to reduce dependence on foreign chipmakers and stake a claim in a sector dominated by China. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened US firm Micron Technology Inc’s semiconductor assembly, test and packaging unit in his home state of Gujarat, hailing the “dawn of a new era” for India’s technology ambitions. “When young Indians look back in the future, they will see this decade as the turning point in our tech future,” Modi told the event, which was broadcast on his YouTube channel. The plant would convert
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Property transactions in the nation’s six special municipalities plunged last month, as a lengthy Lunar New Year holiday combined with ongoing credit tightening dampened housing market activity, data compiled by local land administration offices released on Monday showed. The six cities recorded a total of 10,480 property transfers last month, down 42.5 percent from January and marking the second-lowest monthly level on record, the data showed. “The sharp drop largely reflected seasonal factors and tighter credit conditions,” Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) deputy research manager Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday fell in February this year, reducing
Zimbabwe’s ban on raw lithium exports is forcing Chinese miners to rethink their strategy, speeding up plans to process the metal locally instead of shipping it to China’s vast rechargeable battery industry. The country is Africa’s largest lithium producer and has one of the world’s largest reserves, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). Zimbabwe already banned the export of lithium ore in 2022 and last year announced it would halt exports of lithium concentrates from January next year. However, on Wednesday it imposed the ban with immediate effect, leaving unclear what the lithium mining sector would do in the
RSS