Two local trade groups yesterday called for stable power supply to meet a fast pickup in demand from artificial intelligence (AI) devices and applications.
The Third Wednesday Club (三三會) and the Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce (CNAIC, 工商協進會) raised the issue ahead of an electricity price review committee meeting convened by the Ministry of Economic Affairs tomorrow to discuss electricity rates.
Lin Por-fong (林伯豐), chairman of the Third Wednesday Club whose membership is limited to the top 100 firms in individual sectors, said policymakers should adopt an incremental and fair approach when setting new electricity rates.
Photo: CNA
In the past, the ministry had spared most households and small businesses from rate hikes and made big industrial and commercial facilities bear the brunt, Lin said.
Lin disagreed. “All should share the responsibility of keeping unprofitable Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) afloat,” he said.
Taipower last year incurred NT$198.5 billion (US$6.22 billion) of losses with cumulated losses soaring to NT$382.6 billion.
Taipower could have eased its losses by raising the share of more affordable nuclear power and policymakers should do so to ensure stable power supply and prices, Lin said.
In addition, the government should extend the services of the Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant in New Taipei City’s Wanli District (萬里) and the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County’s Hengchun Township (恆春), he said.
Stable and affordable power supply is critical to local technology firms, which are heavy electricity users but play a key role in driving Taiwan’s GDP growth, he added.
CNAIC chairman Thomas Wu (吳東亮) said in a separate venue that the government should seriously evaluate if Taiwan has sufficient energy to meet fast-growing demand from local tech firms involved in the supply of AI chips, servers and other devices.
The nation needs to be prepared since AI applications are expected to mushroom in the coming few years, Wu said.
Micron Memory Taiwan Co (台灣美光), a subsidiary of US memorychip maker Micron Technology Inc, has been granted a NT$4.7 billion (US$149.5 million) subsidy under the Ministry of Economic Affairs A+ Corporate Innovation and R&D Enhancement program, the ministry said yesterday. The US memorychip maker’s program aims to back the development of high-performance and high-bandwidth memory chips with a total budget of NT$11.75 billion, the ministry said. Aside from the government funding, Micron is to inject the remaining investment of NT$7.06 billion as the company applied to participate the government’s Global Innovation Partnership Program to deepen technology cooperation, a ministry official told the
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s leading advanced chipmaker, officially began volume production of its 2-nanometer chips in the fourth quarter of this year, according to a recent update on the company’s Web site. The low-key announcement confirms that TSMC, the go-to chipmaker for artificial intelligence (AI) hardware providers Nvidia Corp and iPhone maker Apple Inc, met its original roadmap for the next-generation technology. Production is currently centered at Fab 22 in Kaohsiung, utilizing the company’s first-generation nanosheet transistor technology. The new architecture achieves “full-node strides in performance and power consumption,” TSMC said. The company described the 2nm process as
Shares in Taiwan closed at a new high yesterday, the first trading day of the new year, as contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) continued to break records amid an artificial intelligence (AI) boom, dealers said. The TAIEX closed up 386.21 points, or 1.33 percent, at 29,349.81, with turnover totaling NT$648.844 billion (US$20.65 billion). “Judging from a stronger Taiwan dollar against the US dollar, I think foreign institutional investors returned from the holidays and brought funds into the local market,” Concord Securities Co (康和證券) analyst Kerry Huang (黃志祺) said. “Foreign investors just rebuilt their positions with TSMC as their top target,
H200 CHIPS: A source said that Nvidia has asked the Taiwanese company to begin production of additional chips and work is expected to start in the second quarter Nvidia Corp is scrambling to meet demand for its H200 artificial intelligence (AI) chips from Chinese technology companies and has approached contract manufacturer Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to ramp up production, sources said. Chinese technology companies have placed orders for more than 2 million H200 chips for this year, while Nvidia holds just 700,000 units in stock, two of the people said. The exact additional volume Nvidia intends to order from TSMC remains unclear, they said. A third source said that Nvidia has asked TSMC to begin production of the additional chips and work is expected to start in the second
RSS