CHINA
Drought hits Guangdong
Guangdong Province is grappling with a drought that has prompted the central government to investigate and cities to urge people to conserve water. Residents of Guangzhou, capital of the largest Chinese province by GDP, should use less water and store supplies, city officials said in a statement on Friday. The Dong River, which supplies nearly one-third of the city’s water, was suffering its worst drought since 1963, they added. The river, a tributary of the Pearl River, is also a major source of drinking water for Hong Kong, although there is no sign the former British colony is short on supplies. Shenzhen also urged residents to cut water use last week, Caixin Global reported.
SAUDI ARABIA
Budget surplus forecast
The kingdom on Sunday approved the budget for next year, projecting a surplus for the first time since oil prices collapsed in 2014. King Salman said the improved fiscal situation for the world’s biggest oil exporter comes “after the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has overcome the economic repercussions and the exceptional stages of the coronavirus pandemic.” Cited by the Saudi Press Agency, he said total expenditures were budgeted at 955 billion Saudi riyals (US$255 billion) and revenues estimated at 1.045 trillion riyals, resulting in a surplus of 90 billion riyals. The last time that the kingdom saw a surplus was in 2013, when it reached 206 billion riyals.
CANADA
Supply summit planned
In the aftermath of disastrous floods last month that cut off Canada’s main port, Ottawa is to convene a summit of industry figures and shippers to discuss strengthening supply chains, a government source said on Sunday. The event is to take place early next year and would bring together shippers, ports, terminals, and the railway and trucking sectors, as well as organizations that run critical infrastructure, to discuss how to ensure the supply chains can recover fully and make them more resilient, the source said.
MINING
Rio cancels Mongolia debt
Rio Tinto Group is to cancel US$2.3 billion in debt owed by Mongolia as the miner seeks to push forward with expanding the giant Oyu Tolgoi copper project that has been beset by years of disputes, delays and cost blowouts. Rio CEO Jakob Stausholm proposed improved terms for a 2015 financing agreement in a letter yesterday to Mongolian Prime Minister Oyun-Erdene Luvsannamsrai. Writing off the debt would speed up the timeline for when the country can start to receive dividends, it said. The Mongolian government has 34 percent ownership of Oyu Tolgoi, with the rest held by Turquoise Hill Resources Ltd, which is 51 percent owned by Rio.
TEXTILES
Reliance bids for Sintex
Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd, along with a partner, are among those bidding to take over bankrupt Indian textile firm Sintex Industries Ltd, according to a stock-exchange filing, as the billionaire attempts to diversify from an oil empire and into telecommunications, green energy and fashion. Reliance is partnering with Assets Care & Reconstruction Enterprise Ltd to bid for the company under a court-appointed bankruptcy resolution process, Sintex said in a filing on Sunday. Other bidders are Easygo Textiles Pvt, GHCL Ltd and Himatsingka Ventures Pvt, which is working with Shrikant Himatsingka and Dinesh Kumar Himatsingka.
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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