Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶), one of the largest contract notebook computer makers in Taiwan, yesterday said that Texas is one of its top options as it considers investing in the US.
Speaking with reporters on the sidelines of the company’s weiya (尾牙), or year-end dinner, Compal president Anthony Peter Bonadero said that in response to the return to the White House of US president-elect Donald Trump, who vowed to raise tariffs during his campaign trail, the company is considering investments in the US.
Compal is looking at several options in particular states in the southern US, and Texas is one of the leading options, as it is the only state in the US with an independent electricity grid network, Bonadero said.
Photo: Fang Wei-chieh, Taipei Times
Compal, which also makes artificial intelligence (AI) servers, is one of several Taiwanese tech firms to list Texas as their top investment venue option.
Over the weekend, Inventec Corp (英業達) president Jack Tsai (蔡枝安), another AI server maker in Taiwan, also said that Texas is a likely choice for its US investments, citing the state’s adequate power supply, as well as its proximity to Mexico.
As global demand for AI servers largely comes from four mega data centers in the US, it is no surprise that Compal is thinking about investments in manufacturing in North America over the longer term, Bonadero said.
The company is expanding its talent pool for the fast-growing server business, while assessing a production expansion plan, he said.
Compal has joined US-based AI chip designer Nvidia Corp’s MGX server platform — a modular reference design supporting diverse applications, from remote visualization to edge supercomputing, he said.
The company aims to strengthen its ties with the US AI giant, he added.
AI servers would account for 15 percent to 20 percent of the company’s sales generated by servers this year, up from last year’s low single digits, as the company aggressively searches for business opportunities created by the Nvidia MGX ecosystem, he said.
While the large language model — which refers to a type of machine learning model designed for natural language processing tasks such as language generation — is a very important field for AI server development, Compal would also explore other areas for growth, he said.
In addition, demand for AI PCs is expected to grow this year due to the end of support from Windows 10 in the fourth quarter of the year with replacements of Chromebook computers, he said.
Demand for AI PCs would account for more than 40 percent of total PC sales next year, he said.
The company has laid a solid foundation in PC and smart device production and is looking for a new growth driver, Compal chairman Ray Chen (陳瑞聰) said.
It expects AI servers, automotive electronics and 5G products to become major sources of sales, he said.
When Lika Megreladze was a child, life in her native western Georgian region of Guria revolved around tea. Her mother worked for decades as a scientist at the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops in the village of Anaseuli, Georgia, perfecting cultivation methods for a Georgian tea industry that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews. “When I was a child, this was only my mum’s workplace. Only later I realized that it was something big,” she said. Now, the institute lies abandoned. Yellowed papers are strewn around its decaying corridors, and a statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin
UNIFYING OPPOSITION: Numerous companies have registered complaints over the potential levies, bringing together rival automakers in voicing their reservations US President Donald Trump is readying plans for industry-specific tariffs to kick in alongside his country-by-country duties in two weeks, ramping up his push to reshape the US’ standing in the global trading system by penalizing purchases from abroad. Administration officials could release details of Trump’s planned 50 percent duty on copper in the days before they are set to take effect on Friday next week, a person familiar with the matter said. That is the same date Trump’s “reciprocal” levies on products from more than 100 nations are slated to begin. Trump on Tuesday said that he is likely to impose tariffs
HELPING HAND: Approving the sale of H20s could give China the edge it needs to capture market share and become the global standard, a US representative said The US President Donald Trump administration’s decision allowing Nvidia Corp to resume shipments of its H20 artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China risks bolstering Beijing’s military capabilities and expanding its capacity to compete with the US, the head of the US House Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party said. “The H20, which is a cost-effective and powerful AI inference chip, far surpasses China’s indigenous capability and would therefore provide a substantial increase to China’s AI development,” committee chairman John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican, said on Friday in a letter to US Secretary of
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) market value closed above US$1 trillion for the first time in Taipei last week, with a raised sales forecast driven by robust artificial intelligence (AI) demand. TSMC saw its Taiwanese shares climb to a record high on Friday, a near 50 percent rise from an April low. That has made it the first Asian stock worth more than US$1 trillion, since PetroChina Co (中國石油天然氣) briefly reached the milestone in 2007. As investors turned calm after their aggressive buying on Friday, amid optimism over the chipmaker’s business outlook, TSMC lost 0.43 percent to close at NT$1,150
RSS