INDONESIA
Interest rates unchanged
The central bank left its benchmark interest rate unchanged, and cut its outlook for economic growth, as it seeks to support an uneven recovery as foreign outflows pressure the country’s currency. Bank Indonesia yesterday kept the seven-day reverse repurchase rate at a record low of 3.5 percent. The central bank said that it now expects GDP to expand 4.1 percent to 5.1 percent this year, down from 4.3 percent to 5.3 percent previously. Governor Perry Warjiyo and his board have cut the key rate by 150 basis points since the beginning of last year amid Southeast Asia’s worst COVID-19 outbreak.
FORESTRY
Stora Enso to shut two mills
Finnish forestry company Stora Enso yesterday said that it would permanently close two paper mills, citing decreasing demand for paper in Europe. The firm said that the closures would cut its annual paper sales by about 600 million euros (US$723.8 million), while operating profit would improve by about 35 million euros annually. Stora Enso said that the trend of falling demand had accelerated due to the pandemic, leading to over-capacity in the European paper market and historically low prices. The planned mill closures are expected to take place during the third quarter.
TELECOMS
Deutsche invests in Celo
Deutsche Telekom has invested in Celo, a blockchain payments platform that allows mobile phone access to “decentralized finance” projects, which allow users to bypass traditional financial firms, the company said yesterday. It did not disclose the size of the investment. Deutsche Telekom has also bought an unspecific amount of the Celo digital token used on the platform, it said, following major firms, such as Tesla Inc, which hold cryptocurrency in their coffers. Decentralized finance projects range from cryptocurrency exchanges and loans to insurance, allowing users to bypass traditional financial companies as they borrow, lend or transact with one another.
AVIATION
Garuda ordered to pay fine
An Australian court ordered Garuda Indonesia to pay a fine of A$19 million (US$15 million) in relation to a price-fixing case after Indonesia’s flag carrier dropped an appeal against a penalty levied two years ago, a regulator said yesterday. The Federal Court asked Garuda to pay the sum after the airline withdrew its appeal against the May 2019 judgement, which found that it had fixed fees and surcharges for air freight services between 2003 and 2006, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said. The Federal Court ordered Garuda to pay the penalty in monthly installments from December this year to December 2026, it said.
GAMING
Xbox unveils cloud service
Microsoft Corp’s gaming division Xbox yesterday introduced a beta version of its cloud gaming service on Web browsers of Windows 10 PCs, and Apple Inc’s iPhones and iPads. The feature enables users to play more than 100 Xbox Game Pass titles on Microsoft’s Edge, Google’s Chrome, or Apple’s Safari Internet browsers on their devices instead of using a video game console, easing access to gaming. The beta version is only available for select Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members, who would be sent an invite, Xbox cloud gaming head Catherine Gluckstein said in a blog post on Monday.
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