PC vendor Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) yesterday said it expects closer collaboration with Nvidia Corp, after the latter announced plans to build its new Taiwan office in the Beitou-Shilin Technology Park (北投士林科技園區) in Taipei.
However, the company hopes Nvidia would not poach its talent as the artificial intelligence (AI) chip company is “too attractive,” Asustek chairman Jonney Shih (施崇棠) told reporters after its annual shareholders’ meeting.
Shih also told shareholders that the company expects continued growth in server business this year, after revenue in the segment last year increased fivefold from a year earlier.
Photo: Vanessa Cho, Taipei Times
Earlier this month, the company projected that servers would contribute about 15 percent of its revenue this year.
Shih described the current AI trend as “the poor man’s Chinese kung fu,” referring to the emergence of cost-efficient AI models developed in China that enable effective and resource-saving applications.
Shih took mixture-of-experts models as an example, saying that they allow training and inferencing with relatively few parameters, helping to spur the development of smaller AI applications and launching a new industrial revolution.
AI is driving the revolution by directly producing intelligence, a process now called an “AI factory” or “intelligence manufacturing,” and which is expected to make the production process entirely autonomous, he said.
The scale and impact of AI are comparable to the revolution sparked by the invention of computers, which are now able to produce intelligence and regarded as “brains,” he said.
“This is an opportunity that you can only expect once in 100 years,” he said.
In the robotics sector, Shih said Asustek developed its Zenbo robot in the early stages, but faced challenges due to insufficient intelligence.
However, with the advancement of artificial general intelligence, language can now function as a semiotic system to enable general intelligence in AI, making the development of humanoid robots more viable, he said.
As for the potential impact of tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump, Shih said the US president is highly “unpredictable,” and manufacturers should expect to face short-term pain.
Asustek’s key strategic goals this year include advancing AI-enabled products and services, such as PCs, servers, edge AI and AI of things applications, Shih said.
Shareholders yesterday approved the company’s plan to distribute a cash dividend of NT$34 per share, the highest in three years.
The company’s revenue last year grew 22 percent year-on-year to NT$587.1 billion (US$19.63 billion) and net profit surged 97 percent to NT$31.4 billion, or earnings per share of NT$42.
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
A proposed 100 percent tariff on chip imports announced by US President Donald Trump could shift more of Taiwan’s semiconductor production overseas, a Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) researcher said yesterday. Trump’s tariff policy will accelerate the global semiconductor industry’s pace to establish roots in the US, leading to higher supply chain costs and ultimately raising prices of consumer electronics and creating uncertainty for future market demand, Arisa Liu (劉佩真) at the institute’s Taiwan Industry Economics Database said in a telephone interview. Trump’s move signals his intention to "restore the glory of the US semiconductor industry," Liu noted, saying that
STILL UNCLEAR: Several aspects of the policy still need to be clarified, such as whether the exemptions would expand to related products, PwC Taiwan warned The TAIEX surged yesterday, led by gains in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), after US President Donald Trump announced a sweeping 100 percent tariff on imported semiconductors — while exempting companies operating or building plants in the US, which includes TSMC. The benchmark index jumped 556.41 points, or 2.37 percent, to close at 24,003.77, breaching the 24,000-point level and hitting its highest close this year, Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE) data showed. TSMC rose NT$55, or 4.89 percent, to close at a record NT$1,180, as the company is already investing heavily in a multibillion-dollar plant in Arizona that led investors to assume
AI: Softbank’s stake increases in Nvidia and TSMC reflect Masayoshi Son’s effort to gain a foothold in key nodes of the AI value chain, from chip design to data infrastructure Softbank Group Corp is building up stakes in Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the latest reflection of founder Masayoshi Son’s focus on the tools and hardware underpinning artificial intelligence (AI). The Japanese technology investor raised its stake in Nvidia to about US$3 billion by the end of March, up from US$1 billion in the prior quarter, regulatory filings showed. It bought about US$330 million worth of TSMC shares and US$170 million in Oracle Corp, they showed. Softbank’s signature Vision Fund has also monetized almost US$2 billion of public and private assets in the first half of this year,
RSS