Taiwan Ratings Corp (中華信評) has raised its forecast for Taiwan’s economic growth next year from 2.1 percent to 2.4 percent, as strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) products would provide a solid buffer against potential challenges.
“Strong and rising demand for AI-related devices will continue to propel Taiwan’s economy over the next year,” Taiwan Ratings corporate credit analyst Raymond Hsu (許智清) told a media briefing in Taipei yesterday.
Similar reasons also prompted the agency to increase its growth projection for this year from 4.2 percent to 4.4 percent.
Photo: Wu Hsin-tien, Taipei Times
Hsu said the revisions assume a scenario where US president-elect Donald Trump would not impose additional tariffs on Taiwanese goods after he takes office next month.
Trump has pledged to tighten tariffs on goods from Canada, Mexico and China, and he earlier said Taiwan should pay higher tariffs for stealing the US’ chip business.
The specter of unfavorable trading terms, as well as lingering geopolitical tensions and restrictive interest rates, would constrain economies with heavy dependence on exports such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea, Taiwan Ratings said.
Local tech firms on the AI supply chain would fare better as they command leadership positions in technology processes, Hsu said.
Global technology giants have indicated plans to step up budgets in AI development and investment, a positive trend that would help offset an expected economic slowdown in China, the largest destination for Taiwanese exports, Taiwan Ratings said.
China’s consumer confidence remains slack, despite stimulus measures and Washington’s extra tariffs, if true, would attenuate its effort to come out of the woods, Hsu said.
The ratings agency is looking at tariff hikes from 19.3 percent currently to 25 percent after Trump’s inauguration, limiting China’s GDP growth to 4.1 percent next year, from 4.8 percent this year, he said.
Not all Taiwanese tech firms would evenly benefit from the AI fever. Demand for electronics used in AI equipment and cloud computing is strong, but that for consumer electronics and vehicles would underperform, due to a lack of breakthrough applications and sharpening competition, Hsu said.
As for non-tech sectors, the landscape appears dim going forward, Taiwan Ratings said.
Local makers of cement, base metal and mass commodity products would likely have to grapple with a persistent capacity glut and price cuts, with the Chinese market weighed down by trade disputes with the US, Hsu said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) last week recorded an increase in the number of shareholders to the highest in almost eight months, despite its share price falling 3.38 percent from the previous week, Taiwan Stock Exchange data released on Saturday showed. As of Friday, TSMC had 1.88 million shareholders, the most since the week of April 25 and an increase of 31,870 from the previous week, the data showed. The number of shareholders jumped despite a drop of NT$50 (US$1.59), or 3.38 percent, in TSMC’s share price from a week earlier to NT$1,430, as investors took profits from their earlier gains
AI TALENT: No financial details were released about the deal, in which top Groq executives, including its CEO, would join Nvidia to help advance the technology Nvidia Corp has agreed to a licensing deal with artificial intelligence (AI) start-up Groq, furthering its investments in companies connected to the AI boom and gaining the right to add a new type of technology to its products. The world’s largest publicly traded company has paid for the right to use Groq’s technology and is to integrate its chip design into future products. Some of the start-up’s executives are leaving to join Nvidia to help with that effort, the companies said. Groq would continue as an independent company with a new chief executive, it said on Wednesday in a post on its Web
CHINA RIVAL: The chips are positioned to compete with Nvidia’s Hopper and Blackwell products and would enable clusters connecting more than 100,000 chips Moore Threads Technology Co (摩爾線程) introduced a new generation of chips aimed at reducing artificial intelligence (AI) developers’ dependence on Nvidia Corp’s hardware, just weeks after pulling off one of the most successful Chinese initial public offerings (IPOs) in years. “These products will significantly enhance world-class computing speed and capabilities that all developers aspire to,” Moore Threads CEO Zhang Jianzhong (張建中), a former Nvidia executive, said on Saturday at a company event in Beijing. “We hope they can meet the needs of more developers in China so that you no longer need to wait for advanced foreign products.” Chinese chipmakers are in
POLICY REVERSAL: The decision to allow sales of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China came after years of tightening controls and has drawn objections among some Republicans US House Republicans are calling for arms-sale-style congressional oversight of artificial intelligence (AI) chip exports as US President Donald Trump’s administration moves to approve licenses for Nvidia Corp to ship its H200 processor to China. US Representative Brian Mast, the Republican chairman of the US House Committee on Foreign Affairs, which oversees export controls, on Friday introduced a bill dubbed the AI Overwatch Act that would require the US Congress to be notified of AI chips sales to adversaries. Any processors equal to or higher in capabilities than Nvidia’s H20 would be subject to oversight, the draft bill says. Lawmakers would have
RSS