Yageo Corp (國巨), one of the world’s top three passive component suppliers, said its products have been widely used in artificial intelligence (AI) applications, including servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s AI chips, which has helped to boost its AI-related business’ revenue contribution to about 5 percent.
This growing revenue from AI has been one of Yageo’s major achievements of the past six years, as the company transforms itself into a premium passive component supplier and shakes off cut-throat price competition from Chinese rivals in the standard components segment, Yageo chairman Pierre Chen (陳泰銘) told reporters on the sidelines of an AI summit arranged by the company in Taipei on Thursday.
Yageo has also dramatically reduced China’s revenue contribution to about 24 percent last year, versus as high as 78 percent in 2017, Chen said.
Photo: CNA
As part of its efforts to expand its product spectrum, Yageo dived into the AI sector about five years ago, concentrating on developing components and technologies to enhance power efficiency for AI applications, Chen said.
In Taiwan, Yageo has risen to become the largest supplier of X6S multilayer ceramic capacitors (MLCC), a high-capacity MLCC that is used in AI servers, Chen said.
“We have been deeply involved in the AI [sector]… Yageo will not be absent from any areas linked to AI applications,” he said.
“A majority of the market’s main AI players are our customers from Taiwanese assemblers to overseas AI companies,” he added.
As a long-term supplier to Nvidia, Yageo has also expanded its ability to supply high-capacity MLCCs for Nvidia’s latest and most powerful GB200 superchip through companies on Nvidia’s approved vendor list, the company said.
Global hyperscalers such as Amazon.com Inc and tech giants such as Meta Platforms Inc and Microsoft Corp are keen on investing in servers and data centers to help customers doing AI training and referencing over the next few years.
Chen said that he expected Yageo to benefit from this AI boom.
Yageo develops passive components to enhance power management and power efficiency for customers’ AI products to address the power consumption issue, it said.
Last year, Yageo was the world’s biggest producer of polymer tantalum, which is mainly used in AI servers.
Aside from servers, Yageo’s components also can be found in a wide range of chips that are used in laptops, accelerator cards, switches and autonomous vehicles.
“Yageo now is not the company as it was known 10 years ago,” Chen said.
The MLCC business only accounts about 17 percent of the company’s total revenue, as it has broadened its product portfolios through a series of mergers and acquisitions, Chen said.
In 2017, it accounted for half of the company’s overall revenue.
Magnetic components were Yageo’s biggest revenue source at 30 percent during the first half of this year, company data showed.
As supply chain management becomes an increasingly complicated challenge, Yageo has been tasked to provide a total solution to customers, Chen said.
Passive components only make up a mere 5 percent of customers’ component costs, he added.
Nissan Motor Co has agreed to sell its global headquarters in Yokohama for ￥97 billion (US$630 million) to a group sponsored by Taiwanese autoparts maker Minth Group (敏實集團), as the struggling automaker seeks to shore up its financial position. The acquisition is led by a special purchase company managed by KJR Management Ltd, a Japanese real-estate unit of private equity giant KKR & Co, people familiar with the matter said. KJR said it would act as asset manager together with Mizuho Real Estate Management Co. Nissan is undergoing a broad cost-cutting campaign by eliminating jobs and shuttering plants as it grapples
TEMPORARY TRUCE: China has made concessions to ease rare earth trade controls, among others, while Washington holds fire on a 100% tariff on all Chinese goods China is effectively suspending implementation of additional export controls on rare earth metals and terminating investigations targeting US companies in the semiconductor supply chain, the White House announced. The White House on Saturday issued a fact sheet outlining some details of the trade pact agreed to earlier in the week by US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) that aimed to ease tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Under the deal, China is to issue general licenses valid for exports of rare earths, gallium, germanium, antimony and graphite “for the benefit of US end users and their suppliers
Dutch chipmaker Nexperia BV’s China unit yesterday said that it had established sufficient inventories of finished goods and works-in-progress, and that its supply chain remained secure and stable after its parent halted wafer supplies. The Dutch company suspended supplies of wafers to its Chinese assembly plant a week ago, calling it “a direct consequence of the local management’s recent failure to comply with the agreed contractual payment terms,” Reuters reported on Friday last week. Its China unit called Nexperia’s suspension “unilateral” and “extremely irresponsible,” adding that the Dutch parent’s claim about contractual payment was “misleading and highly deceptive,” according to a statement
The Chinese government has issued guidance requiring new data center projects that have received any state funds to only use domestically made artificial intelligence (AI) chips, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters. In recent weeks, Chinese regulatory authorities have ordered such data centers that are less than 30 percent complete to remove all installed foreign chips, or cancel plans to purchase them, while projects in a more advanced stage would be decided on a case-by-case basis, the sources said. The move could represent one of China’s most aggressive steps yet to eliminate foreign technology from its critical infrastructure amid a
RSS