Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said second-quarter revenue is expected to surpass the first quarter, which rose 30 percent year-on-year to NT$118.92 billion (US$3.71 billion).
Revenue this quarter is likely to grow, as US clients have front-loaded orders ahead of US President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on Taiwanese goods, Delta chairman Ping Cheng (鄭平) said at an earnings conference in Taipei, referring to the 90-day pause in tariff implementation Trump announced on April 9.
While situations in the third and fourth quarters remain unclear, “We will not halt our long-term deployments and do not plan to change our budget this year,” Cheng said.
Photo: Fang Wei-chieh, Taipei Times
Asked whether Delta would build a new factory in the US, Cheng said the company has sufficient production sites around the world and would assess total costs, not just tariffs, before making a decision.
Delta has about 50 percent of its production capacity in China, while it continues to build new factories in Thailand, and maintains sufficient capacity at sites in Taiwan and India, he said.
“We are now building around five new factories in Thailand, and are considering designating it as our second headquarters,” Cheng said. “Our data center in Thailand has been well established, and can retrieve data from our headquarters in Taiwan with only two days of information loss.”
The company also operates small-scale production facilities in the US, Slovakia and Brazil, he added.
Asked about the company’s recent design progress on the new heat dissipation components made for Nvidia Corp’s GB300 server, Delta vice president for corporate investment Lanford Liu (劉亮甫) said the design is still under discussion.
If power consumption continues to rise, some high-end products might require immersion cooling technology, leaving room for further thermal design adjustments, he added.
While traditional data centers can still support graphics processing units (GPUs) such as the H100 and H200 with air-cooling systems, newer models like the GB200 and GB300 require water cooling, and are incompatible with existing layouts and power infrastructure, Cheng said at a separate forum yesterday.
To address this, Delta created a new artificial intelligence (AI) containerized data center that integrates computer racks, cooling systems and power supply units.
The modules are preassembled at factories and can be deployed quickly on-site by simply connecting the cables, he said.
In the first quarter, Delta’s net profit reached NT$10.23 billion, or earnings per share of NT$3.94 — the second-highest ever — driven by growing demand for AI power supply products and heat dissipation components.
Gross margin rose 2.3 percentage points year-on-year to 31.8 percent, while gross profit reached NT$37.8 billion, up 40 percent from a year earlier due to a lower base effect, Delta chief financial officer Yu Po-wen (余博文) said.
Operating expenses rose 21 percent in the first quarter due to higher machinery purchases, but are expected to decline in the following quarters, Yu said.
Sales of power electronics products rose 39 percent year-on-year to NT$59.77 billion in the first quarter, accounting for 50 percent of Delta’s total sales, followed by infrastructure at 29 percent, automation at 12 percent and mobility at 9 percent.
ENERGY ISSUES: The TSIA urged the government to increase natural gas and helium reserves to reduce the impact of the Middle East war on semiconductor supply stability Chip testing and packaging service provider ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控) yesterday said it planned to invest more than NT$100 billion (US$3.15 billion) in building a new advanced chip testing facility in Kaohsiung to keep up with customer demand driven by the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. That would be included in the company’s capital expenditure budget next year, ASE said. There is also room to raise this year’s capital spending budget from a record-high US$7 billion estimated three months ago, it added. ASE would have six factories under construction this year, another record-breaking number, ASE chief operating officer Tien Wu
The EU and US are nearing an agreement to coordinate on producing and securing critical minerals, part of a push to break reliance on Chinese supplies. The potential deal would create incentives, such as minimum prices, that could advantage non-Chinese suppliers, according to a draft of an “action plan” seen by Bloomberg. The EU and US would also cooperate on standards, investments and joint projects, as well as coordinate on any supply disruptions by countries like China. The two sides are additionally seeking other “like-minded partners” to join a multicountry accord to help create these new critical mineral supply chains, which feed into
For weeks now, the global tech industry has been waiting for a major artificial intelligence (AI) launch from DeepSeek (深度求索), seen as a benchmark for China’s progress in the fast-moving field. More than a year has passed since the start-up put Chinese AI on the map in early last year with a low-cost chatbot that performed at a similar level to US rivals. However, despite reports and rumors about its imminent release, DeepSeek’s next-generation “V4” model is nowhere in sight. Speculation is also swirling over the geopolitical implications of which computer chips were chosen to train and power the new
TECH WINNERS: Taiwan and South Korea reported robust trade, which suggests that they have critical advantages in the rapidly expanding AI supply chain, an official said Exports last month surged to a new high, as booming demand tied to artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure fueled shipments of advanced technology components, underscoring the nation’s pivotal role in the global semiconductor supply chain. Outbound shipments climbed to US$80.18 billion, the highest ever for a single month, rising 61.8 percent from a year earlier and marking the 29th consecutive month of growth, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. “The surge was driven primarily by global investment in AI infrastructure,” Department of Statistics Director-General Beatrice Tsai (蔡美娜) said. The mass production of next-generation AI computing systems has accelerated procurement across the semiconductor supply
RSS