AIRLINES
Delta cancels 100 flights
Delta Air Lines Inc has canceled about 100 flights due to a staffing shortage, and opened up middle seats for booking a month earlier than expected to carry more passengers, it said on Sunday. “We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience and the majority have been rebooked for the same travel day,” a spokeswoman said in a statement. The carrier on Wednesday last week said it would resume selling middle seats on May 1.
GREECE
More virus relief planned
The government this month is to provide more financial aid to businesses hit by COVID-19 restrictions, Minister for Finance Christos Staikouras said yesterday. The 130 million euro (US$152.7 million) package would help 100,000 businesses, including about 10,800 retailers, with financial assistance ranging from 1,000 to 4,000 euros, Staikouras said. Last week, the government announced it would ease some restrictions to relieve widespread lockdown fatigue, allowing small retail shops selling nonessential goods to reopen, under so-called “click-away” and “click-in-shopping” modes.
INTERNET
Meesho raises US$300m
Bangalore, India-based social commerce start-up Meesho Inc has raised US$300 million in new funding led by Softbank Group Corp’s Vision Fund 2, valuing the startup at US$2.1 billion. Existing investors such as Prosus Ventures and Facebook Inc also participated in the fresh investment round, which adds a new member to a growing coterie of Indian unicorns. Meesho, which operates an online sales platform for micro, small and medium businesses, would use the funds to “strengthen its talent pool.”
ENERGY
LNG deliveries grow
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) deliveries expanded the most in a year as Asia and Europe refilled inventories drained over the winter, and as economies affected the COVID-19 pandemic slowly begin to reopen, ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg showed. Imports rose 5.8 percent last month from a year earlier, the biggest increase since March last year, data showed. Global exports of the fuel rose 4.2 percent last month from levels a year earlier. Output from the US surged to a record high as projects ramped up production.
INVESTMENTS
Berkshire starts bond deal
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc yesterday started a multi-tranche yen bond deal, several months after announcing investments in Japan’s biggest trading companies. Berkshire Hathaway is offering yen notes for a third straight year, targeting a four-part yen deal that might price on Thursday, according to an e-mail from JPMorgan Chase & Co. The proceeds would be used for general corporate purposes. The conglomerate sold ¥430 billion (US$3.89 billion) of the securities in its inaugural deal in 2019, which was one of the largest-ever sales by a foreign issuer in yen.
ARGENTINA
Minister discusses IMF deal
Finalizing a plan with the IMF to repay US$45 billion in debt likely would not happen by next month or June, Minister of Economy Martin Guzman said. Changing the terms of a previous repayment program would require the support of nations such as China, France, Germany, Japan and the US, he said in an interview with CNN Espanol. The government is unable to pay the IMF the US$45 billion required from September 2021 to 2024, he added.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to