TECHNOLOGY
Facebook expands in Texas
Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc is going bigger in Texas. The company has leased half of what is to be Austin’s tallest skyscraper, making the social media giant the latest major business to expand in the state. Meta is leasing 54,720m2 across 33 floors, a spokesperson said on Sunday. It would account for the entire commercial half of a 66-story tower under construction in the heart of Austin’s downtown area. Meta is seeking to hire 400 more people in the area, and would have the capacity along with other space in the region for many more, the company said. The tower is scheduled to open next year.
AGRICULTURE
Yara exits Belarus purchase
Norwegian fertilizer maker Yara yesterday said it would wind down its purchase of potash from Belarus by April 1, as international sanctions made it impossible to continue the trade. Yara is a key customer of state-owned Belaruskali, one of the world’s largest producers of potassium salt, or potash, the crop nutrient that is a major foreign currency earner for Belarus. The company said its purchase of potash from Belarus had been in full compliance with the sanctions, but would still have to come to a halt. Yara sources potash from nine suppliers globally, a company sustainability report filed last year showed.
HOTELS
Reliance to buy NY hotel
Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd has agreed to buy an indirect 73.37 percent stake in Mandarin Oriental New York for US$98.15 million, the company said in a filing on Saturday. Reliance Industrial Investments and Holdings, a wholly owned unit of Reliance Industries, would buy the entire issued share capital of Columbus Centre Corp, a company incorporated in the Cayman Islands, which indirectly owns the stake in the luxury hotel. The company said it would also seek to buy the remaining stake from other owners at the same valuation. The transaction is expected to close by the end of March.
LABOR
Sick, isolated ravage output
Staff shortages caused by COVID-19 illness and mandatory isolation could result in a ￡35 billion (US$47.57 billion) loss in output in the UK over this and next month, according to the Sunday Times. The projected loss is equivalent to 8.8 percent of GDP and based on government planning assumptions of a 25 percent absenteeism rate, the study conducted by the Centre for Economics and Business Research showed. Even a more conservative estimate of 8 percent absenteeism — which is three times the seasonal average — could result in loss in output of ￡10.2 billion, or 2.6 percent of GDP, the center said.
HONG KONG
COVID-19 toll continues
Financial Secretary Paul Chan (陳茂波) expects the territory’s economy to take a hit as a fifth wave of COVID-19 infections sparked by the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 takes hold. The government has yet to give economic forecasts for the year, which is expected during Chan’s annual budget speech next month, but he said in his blog post on Sunday that he would also take into account the global COVID-19 pandemic, supply-chain bottlenecks and changes in monetary policies by western central banks in making his predictions. Economists at Morgan Stanley and Bloomberg Economics have already cut their economic growth forecasts for Hong Kong.
CHIP RACE: Three years of overbroad export controls drove foreign competitors to pursue their own AI chips, and ‘cost US taxpayers billions of dollars,’ Nvidia said China has figured out the US strategy for allowing it to buy Nvidia Corp’s H200s and is rejecting the artificial intelligence (AI) chip in favor of domestically developed semiconductors, White House AI adviser David Sacks said, citing news reports. US President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would allow shipments of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China, part of an administration effort backed by Sacks to challenge Chinese tech champions such as Huawei Technologies Co (華為) by bringing US competition to their home market. On Friday, Sacks signaled that he was uncertain about whether that approach would work. “They’re rejecting our chips,” Sacks
NATIONAL SECURITY: Intel’s testing of ACM tools despite US government control ‘highlights egregious gaps in US technology protection policies,’ a former official said Chipmaker Intel Corp has tested chipmaking tools this year from a toolmaker with deep roots in China and two overseas units that were targeted by US sanctions, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Intel, which fended off calls for its CEO’s resignation from US President Donald Trump in August over his alleged ties to China, got the tools from ACM Research Inc, a Fremont, California-based producer of chipmaking equipment. Two of ACM’s units, based in Shanghai and South Korea, were among a number of firms barred last year from receiving US technology over claims they have
It is challenging to build infrastructure in much of Europe. Constrained budgets and polarized politics tend to undermine long-term projects, forcing officials to react to emergencies rather than plan for the future. Not in Austria. Today, the country is to officially open its Koralmbahn tunnel, the 5.9 billion euro (US$6.9 billion) centerpiece of a groundbreaking new railway that will eventually run from Poland’s Baltic coast to the Adriatic Sea, transforming travel within Austria and positioning the Alpine nation at the forefront of logistics in Europe. “It is Austria’s biggest socio-economic experiment in over a century,” said Eric Kirschner, an economist at Graz-based Joanneum
OPTION: Uber said it could provide higher pay for batch trips, if incentives for batching is not removed entirely, as the latter would force it to pass on the costs to consumers Uber Technologies Inc yesterday warned that proposed restrictions on batching orders and minimum wages could prompt a NT$20 delivery fee increase in Taiwan, as lower efficiency would drive up costs. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi made the remarks yesterday during his visit to Taiwan. He is on a multileg trip to the region, which includes stops in South Korea and Japan. His visit coincided the release last month of the Ministry of Labor’s draft bill on the delivery sector, which aims to safeguard delivery workers’ rights and improve their welfare. The ministry set the minimum pay for local food delivery drivers at
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