ENERGY
J&V applies to list on board
J&V Energy Technology Co (雲豹能源) yesterday said that it has applied to list on the Taiwan Stock Exchange’s Taiwan Innovation Board, after starting trading its shares on the Emerging Stock Board in January. The exchange has encouraged start-ups and biotechnology firms to list on the new board regardless of their profit performance, as it focuses more on their market potential. J&V Energy’s businesses include solar power, offshore wind power, energy storage, power sales platform and water treatment. It reported cumulative revenue of NT$4.49 billion (US$144.35 million) in the first 10 months of this year, with an annual growth of 1,008.64 percent, which surpassed the NT$2.155 billion it registered for the whole of last year. The Taiwan Innovation Board was launched in July last year, with only one company debuting its shares so far.
RESTAURANTS
Din Tai Fung to raise prices
The Din Tai Fung (鼎泰豐) restaurant chain, renowned for its steamed dumplings, is to hike prices on certain items in light of rising production costs. Effective from Tuesday next week, prices of 140 items are to increase by 4 percent on average, the chain said on its Web site yesterday. It has raised prices for two years in a row to reflect higher raw material and labor costs. The price of steamed dumplings is to increase NT$2 to NT$25 each, it said. The price of shrimp fried rice with egg is to increase from NT$250 to NT$270, while steamed chicken soup is to cost NT$230 per bowl, up from NT$220, it added.
ENERGY
Swancor changes name
Offshore wind farm developer Swancor Renewable Energy Co (SRE, 上緯新能源) yesterday changed its name to Synera Renewable Energy Co (風睿能源). “The new company name, Synera, is derived from the words ‘synergy’ and ‘era.’ It faithfully reflects how our team members have worked together in solidarity over the past decade to navigate challenges and stand at the forefront of a new era of offshore wind power,” SRE chairman Lucas Lin (林雍堯) said in a statement. The company is fully engaged in phase 3, or “zonal development,” of the government’s offshore wind farm development plan, it said. The experience of developing, building, operating and maintaining offshore wind farms in northwestern Taiwan would aid the company in developing two large offshore wind projects — the bottom-fixed Formosa 4 and floating Formosa 5 — off Miaoli County, it said.
HOME APPLIANCES
Taiwan Sakura posts profit
Taiwan Sakura Corp (台灣櫻花) posted NT$2.5 billion in net profit for last quarter, suggesting an 11.8 percent increase year-on-year on the back of healthy demand for kitchen appliances and related products. The results translated into earnings per share of NT$1.15, the company reported last week. In the first three quarters of the year, cumulative revenue rose 14.6 percent year-on-year to NT$6.05 billion and net profit increased 4.5 percent to a record NT$7.5 billion, with earnings per share of NT$3.47, it said. The Taichung-based company primarily manufactures and sells water heaters, gas stoves, range hoods and integrated kitchens. The company also provides delivery services for oil screens, security-check services and maintenance services.
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