Google and General Motors Co joined Intel Corp, the world’s largest chipmaker, and Alphabet Inc’s autonomous driving unit, Waymo, in pulling out of in-person presentations at the CES technology conference scheduled for next month.
GM on Thursday said that it would move to “an all-digital approach” at the annual event that has become a major venue for the unveiling of innovation in the automotive industry.
The automaker would share “significant company news including the reveal of the Chevrolet Silverado EV [electric vehicle]” online during the conference, the company said in a statement.
Photo: Reuters
Google later said that it made the decision to pull out after “closely monitoring the development of the Omicron variant” of SARS-CoV-2.
The decision to bypass attendance at the trade show “is the best choice for the health and safety of our teams,” a Google spokesperson said in a statement.
In a blog post earlier on Thursday, Google’s sister company, Waymo, also cited rising COVID-19 infection rates and said its executives would participate in online events.
Earlier, Intel said that it would send only a small number of employees to the Las Vegas event and switch its participation to the Internet, adding to a growing list of technology companies that have dropped out of in-person presentations.
“After consulting with health officials and in the spirit of Intel’s safety policy, our plans for CES will move to a digital-first, live experience, with minimal on-site staff,” Intel said in a statement.
Intel, whose processors are the heart of most of the world’s PCs, has historically been a large participant in the annual trade show that has attracted tens of thousands of attendees from around the world.
An executive board member of Porsche AG, Barbara Frenkel, also canceled her plans to attend the conference scheduled to begin on Jan. 5.
Over the past few days, exhibitors including T-Mobile US Inc and Meta Platforms Inc have curtailed plans to attend the gathering in person.
Other high-profile attendees, such as Amazon.com Inc and Twitter Inc, will not be attending either.
The Consumer Technology Association, which runs the event, on Wednesday said that the cancelations add up to less than 7 percent of its exhibit floor. The organization said it has received 42 cancelation notices from exhibitors, but that it has added 60 new ones since last week.
CAUTIOUS RECOVERY: While the manufacturing sector returned to growth amid the US-China trade truce, firms remain wary as uncertainty clouds the outlook, the CIER said The local manufacturing sector returned to expansion last month, as the official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) rose 2.1 points to 51.0, driven by a temporary easing in US-China trade tensions, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The PMI gauges the health of the manufacturing industry, with readings above 50 indicating expansion and those below 50 signaling contraction. “Firms are not as pessimistic as they were in April, but they remain far from optimistic,” CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said at a news conference. The full impact of US tariff decisions is unlikely to become clear until later this month
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
CHIP DUTIES: TSMC said it voiced its concerns to Washington about tariffs, telling the US commerce department that it wants ‘fair treatment’ to protect its competitiveness Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday reiterated robust business prospects for this year as strong artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from Nvidia Corp and other customers would absorb the impacts of US tariffs. “The impact of tariffs would be indirect, as the custom tax is the importers’ responsibility, not the exporters,” TSMC chairman and chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at the chipmaker’s annual shareholders’ meeting in Hsinchu City. TSMC’s business could be affected if people become reluctant to buy electronics due to inflated prices, Wei said. In addition, the chipmaker has voiced its concern to the US Department of Commerce
Popular vape brands such as Geek Bar might get more expensive in the US — if you can find them at all. Shipments of vapes from China to the US ground to a near halt last month from a year ago, official data showed, hit by US President Donald Trump’s tariffs and a crackdown on unauthorized e-cigarettes in the world’s biggest market for smoking alternatives. That includes Geek Bar, a brand of flavored vapes that is not authorized to sell in the US, but which had been widely available due to porous import controls. One retailer, who asked not to be named, because
RSS