Cloud computing equipment supplier Wiwynn Corp (緯穎科技) yesterday said it expects artificial intelligence (AI) server shipments to grow in the second half of the year from the first half, driven by increasing demand for graphics processing unit and application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) servers.
Meanwhile, shipments of general-purpose servers are expected to be flat in the second half, Wiwynn CEO and president William Lin (林威遠) told reporters after the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting.
The company expects to start shipping its first batch of AI servers powered by the Nvidia Corp GB300 chip in August at the earliest, likely from a new factory in Texas in a bid to mitigate impact from tariff uncertainty, Lin said.
Photo: CNA
Wiwynn is also seeking opportunities from another camp, servers powered by ASICs or customized AI accelerators built by cloud service providers, as chip technology has matured, Wiwynn chairwoman Emily Hong (洪麗甯) said.
Despite the positive server prospects, Hong said the company remains cautious about US tariff uncertainties and the sharp appreciation of the New Taiwan dollar against the US dollar.
Every NT$1 rise in the NT dollar against the greenback would cut Wiwynn’s revenue by 3 percent and reduce operating margin by 0.05 percentage points, Hong said.
Overall, the foreign exchange rate issue is still manageable, as the company has boosted its hedging tools against foreign exchange volatility, she said.
To minimize the impact from the tariff uncertainties, Wiwynn said about 70 percent of its servers exported to North America are made in Mexico, given the country’s preferential tax status under the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement and Section 232 of the US Trade Expansion Act of 1962.
The company could be flexible about manufacturing site shifts depending on changes in US tariff policies, she said.
Aside from Taiwan and Mexico, the company has factories in the Czech Republic and Malaysia.
Shareholders yesterday approved the company’s plan to distribute a cash dividend of NT$74 per share, the highest in the company’s history.
That represented a payout ratio of 58.5 percent based on the company’s earnings per share of NT$126.57 last year.
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