President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday thanked memory chipmaker Micron Technology CEO Sanjay Mehrotra for his trust and continued investment in Taiwan, in a rare public meeting with a senior foreign tech executive.
It is very unusual for Taiwan’s president to have publicized meetings with senior foreign tech executives, despite the nation being home to the world’s largest contract chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), whose chips help to power the surge in artificial intelligence (AI) applications.
Lai thanked Mehrotra for “showing trust and support for Taiwan” in a video released by the Presidential Office.
Photo courtesy of the Presidential Office
“I want to thank Micron for its long-term investment in Taiwan and continuing to promote the upgrading of DRAM process technology in Taiwan,” he added.
Micron is one of the few providers of high-bandwidth memory chips used in advanced AI systems.
Taiwan hopes Micron will continue to expand its research and development capabilities, and the government will create a “friendly living environment” for foreign talent to meet the needs of companies, Lai said.
Last year, Micron launched a new facility in Taichung, which accelerated the development and mass production of advanced DRAM technology, as well as spurring supply chain localization, Lai said in a statement published on the Presidential Office Web site.
With Micron working side by side with Taiwan, the nation’s semiconductor industry has secured a pivotal global role, he said.
Moving forward, the government will continue developing the semiconductor industry and accelerate Taiwan’s transformation into an AI island, he said.
“It’s an honor to meet with you today,” Mehrotra told Lai.
Micron did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Lai’s meeting with Mehrotra was not previously announced in the president’s official schedule, which is sent to reporters.
Meta Platforms Inc offered US$100 million bonuses to OpenAI employees in an unsuccessful bid to poach the ChatGPT maker’s talent and strengthen its own generative artificial intelligence (AI) teams, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has said. Facebook’s parent company — a competitor of OpenAI — also offered “giant” annual salaries exceeding US$100 million to OpenAI staffers, Altman said in an interview on the Uncapped with Jack Altman podcast released on Tuesday. “It is crazy,” Sam Altman told his brother Jack in the interview. “I’m really happy that at least so far none of our best people have decided to take them
BYPASSING CHINA TARIFFS: In the first five months of this year, Foxconn sent US$4.4bn of iPhones to the US from India, compared with US$3.7bn in the whole of last year Nearly all the iPhones exported by Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) from India went to the US between March and last month, customs data showed, far above last year’s average of 50 percent and a clear sign of Apple Inc’s efforts to bypass high US tariffs imposed on China. The numbers, being reported by Reuters for the first time, show that Apple has realigned its India exports to almost exclusively serve the US market, when previously the devices were more widely distributed to nations including the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. During March to last month, Foxconn, known as Hon Hai Precision Industry
PLANS: MSI is also planning to upgrade its service center in the Netherlands Micro-Star International Co (MSI, 微星) yesterday said it plans to set up a server assembly line at its Poland service center this year at the earliest. The computer and peripherals manufacturer expects that the new server assembly line would shorten transportation times in shipments to European countries, a company spokesperson told the Taipei Times by telephone. MSI manufactures motherboards, graphics cards, notebook computers, servers, optical storage devices and communication devices. The company operates plants in Taiwan and China, and runs a global network of service centers. The company is also considering upgrading its service center in the Netherlands into a
Taiwan’s property market is entering a freeze, with mortgage activity across the nation’s six largest cities plummeting in the first quarter, H&B Realty Co (住商不動產) said yesterday, citing mounting pressure on housing demand amid tighter lending rules and regulatory curbs. Mortgage applications in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung totaled 28,078 from January to March, a sharp 36.3 percent decline from 44,082 in the same period last year, the nation’s largest real-estate brokerage by franchise said, citing data from the Joint Credit Information Center (JCIC, 聯徵中心). “The simultaneous decline across all six cities reflects just how drastically the market
RSS