Industrial production in the third quarter rose 12.25 percent from a year earlier on strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips and servers, and camera lenses used in new iPhones, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
Manufacturing production, the pillar of the nation’s industrial production, increased 13 percent annually last quarter, matching the ministry’s forecast of double-digit percentage growth.
“The fourth quarter should be better than the third quarter based on our current observations, if the traditional segments do not become a drag,” Department of Statistics Deputy Director-General Huang Wei-jie (黃偉傑) said by telephone yesterday.
Photo: RITCHIE B. TONGO, EPA-EFE
“The manufacturing sector remains resilient, but it showed an uneven recovery last month with traditional segments struggling to emerge from a slump,” Huang said.
Shipments of AI servers powered by Nvidia Corp’s new GB200 chips would be a major driving force of manufacturing production this quarter, the ministry said.
Earlier this month, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) said that it planned to ship the first AI servers powered by GB200 in December.
Manufacturing production last month grew 11.22 percent annually and is expected to grow from 7.4 to 11.8 percent this month, Huang said.
On a sequential basis, it would contract 0.7 percent or grow 3.4 percent, he added.
Last month, production in the electronic components industry soared 19.03 percent annually due to high demand for AI and high-performance computing devices, marking the best September performance in history, with the semiconductor industry posting output growth of 23.77 percent but the flat panel industry reporting a decline of 8.43 percent, ministry data showed.
The production of the computer and optoelectronics industry surged 32.41 percent, also the best September performance on record, thanks to robust demand for cloud-based data centers, camera lenses used in smartphones and semiconductor inspection tools, the data showed.
The machinery equipment industry's production rose 1.08 percent on the back of increased demand for semiconductor manufacturing equipment and related components, but machine tool production continued to slump, the ministry said.
The production of base metals, mostly steel, dipped for a third consecutive month at an annual pace of 0.39 percent, that of the chemical materials and fertilizer industry fell 2.34 percent, and the production of vehicles and auto parts sank 15.28 percent, it said.
NEW IDENTITY: Known for its software, India has expanded into hardware, with its semiconductor industry growing from US$38bn in 2023 to US$45bn to US$50bn India on Saturday inaugurated its first semiconductor assembly and test facility, a milestone in the government’s push to reduce dependence on foreign chipmakers and stake a claim in a sector dominated by China. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened US firm Micron Technology Inc’s semiconductor assembly, test and packaging unit in his home state of Gujarat, hailing the “dawn of a new era” for India’s technology ambitions. “When young Indians look back in the future, they will see this decade as the turning point in our tech future,” Modi told the event, which was broadcast on his YouTube channel. The plant would convert
Nanya Technology Corp (南亞科技) yesterday said the DRAM supply crunch could extend through 2028, as the artificial intelligence (AI) boom has led the world’s major memory makers to dramatically reduce production of standard DRAM and allocate a significant portion of their capacity for high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips. The most severe supply constraints would stretch to the first half of next year due to “very limited” increases in new DRAM capacity worldwide, Nanya Technology president Lee Pei-ing (李培瑛) told a news briefing. The company plans to increase monthly 12-inch wafer capacity to 20,000 in the first half of 2028 after a
Property transactions in the nation’s six special municipalities plunged last month, as a lengthy Lunar New Year holiday combined with ongoing credit tightening dampened housing market activity, data compiled by local land administration offices released on Monday showed. The six cities recorded a total of 10,480 property transfers last month, down 42.5 percent from January and marking the second-lowest monthly level on record, the data showed. “The sharp drop largely reflected seasonal factors and tighter credit conditions,” Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房屋) deputy research manager Chen Chin-ping (陳金萍) said. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday fell in February this year, reducing
Zimbabwe’s ban on raw lithium exports is forcing Chinese miners to rethink their strategy, speeding up plans to process the metal locally instead of shipping it to China’s vast rechargeable battery industry. The country is Africa’s largest lithium producer and has one of the world’s largest reserves, according to the US Geological Survey (USGS). Zimbabwe already banned the export of lithium ore in 2022 and last year announced it would halt exports of lithium concentrates from January next year. However, on Wednesday it imposed the ban with immediate effect, leaving unclear what the lithium mining sector would do in the
RSS