The Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) yesterday fined Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) NT$150,000 (US$5,010), saying that the iPhone assembler did not disclose its plan to invest in Tsinghua Unigroup (紫光集團) as soon as the board approved the deal, the agency said.
Hon Hai said in a July 14 filing to the TWSE that its subsidiary Foxconn Industrial Internet Co Ltd (富士康工業互聯網) had invested 5.38 billion yuan (US$797 million) in the state-backed Chinese chip company through several smaller investments in Chinese companies, a corporate data filing showed.
TWSE-listed companies should not postpone disclosing such major investments, the local bourse said.
The fine came after the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Investment Commission said that it might fine Hon Hai, as the company invested in the chipmaker before gaining regulatory approval in Taiwan, the Central News Agency reported.
The fine for such a regulatory lapse would be NT$50,000 to NT$25 million, ministry data showed.
The ministry said it received the application from Hon Hai on Tuesday last week and has requested the company submit additional documents, as the information provided was insufficient.
The ministry would determine whether Hon Hai’s investment in the Chinese chip company involves component technologies for which additional rules apply, the report said.
If it does, the investment would need to be scrutinized by a special committee, the ministry said.
Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday said that its research institute has launched its first advanced artificial intelligence (AI) large language model (LLM) using traditional Chinese, with technology assistance from Nvidia Corp. Hon Hai, also known as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), said the LLM, FoxBrain, is expected to improve its data analysis capabilities for smart manufacturing, and electric vehicle and smart city development. An LLM is a type of AI trained on vast amounts of text data and uses deep learning techniques, particularly neural networks, to process and generate language. They are essential for building and improving AI-powered servers. Nvidia provided assistance
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