Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) predicts three-digit percentage growth for its artificial intelligence (AI) server business due to robust demand for AI products such as ChatGPT, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) said yesterday.
Hon Hai — known globally as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) — is the world’s biggest contract electronics manufacturer and assembles devices for many international brands, most notably Apple Inc’s iPhone products.
It has also moved to diversify beyond electronics assembly, expanding into areas ranging from electric vehicles to semiconductors and servers.
Photo: CNA
“In 2022 alone, Hon Hai’s revenue for servers reached NT$1.1 trillion [US$35.75 billion] to obtain a 40 percent global market share,” Liu told an annual shareholders’ meeting in Taipei.
AI servers made up about 20 percent of the company's total server sales last year, Liu said, adding that Hon Hai had taken advantage of solutions provided by Intel Corp, Advanced Micro Devices Inc and ARM Ltd to roll out AI servers.
Hon Hai ranks first in global market share for mobile phones, PCs and servers, with the AI server market now “rising faster than everyone has expected,” Liu said.
He attributed the jump in demand to ChatGPT, the AI program that burst into the spotlight late last year with the ability to generate essays, poems and conversations from the briefest of prompts. Its runaway success has sparked a gold rush with billions of dollars of investment in the field.
“For the second half of this year, we may have three-digit growth, not two digits... We will continue to boost our market share for servers,” Liu said.
He said the company’s latest AI servers also use Nvidia Corp chips.
Nvidia is known for creating graphics chips long coveted by gamers, but which have become engines for the kind of complex processes involved in AI, known as accelerated computing.
Nvidia, cofounded by Taiwanese-American Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), surged to a market value of more than US$1 trillion on Tuesday after its quarterly earnings report last week blew past expectations.
Despite the rosy future for AI, Hon Hai maintains a “flat” outlook for this year, Liu said, after its first-quarter profit plunged 56 percent on weakened demand due to a global downturn.
“The global tightening monetary [policies], coupled with tense geopolitics and the significant uncertainty of inflation have a relatively large impact on the economic outlook,” he said.
Meanwhile, Hon Hai has started trial production of a third-generation silicon carbide (SiC) semiconductor for use in electric vehicles for five clients, Liu said, adding that a 6-inch SiC wafer plant in Hsinchu acquired from Macronix International Co (旺宏電子) in 2021 has begun commercial production.
According to Hon Young Semiconductor Corp (鴻揚半導體), a Hon Hai subsidiary, the Hsinchu plant will be upgraded to an 8-inch wafer plant by 2025 with an ultimate annual production capacity of up to 200,000 units.
At the meeting, Hon Hai shareholders approved a proposal to issue NT$5.3 in cash dividend per share based on the company's earnings per share of NT$10.21 last year.
The cash dividend, the highest since the company launched an initial public offering in 1991, represents a payout ratio of 52 percent and is the fourth consecutive year Hon Hai has maintained a payout ratio above 50 percent.
Additional reporting by CNA
A Chinese aircraft carrier group entered Japan’s economic waters over the weekend, before exiting to conduct drills involving fighter jets, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said yesterday. The Liaoning aircraft carrier, two missile destroyers and one fast combat supply ship sailed about 300km southwest of Japan’s easternmost island of Minamitori on Saturday, a ministry statement said. It was the first time a Chinese aircraft carrier had entered that part of Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), a ministry spokesman said. “We think the Chinese military is trying to improve its operational capability and ability to conduct operations in distant areas,” the spokesman said. China’s growing
Nine retired generals from Taiwan, Japan and the US have been invited to participate in a tabletop exercise hosted by the Taipei School of Economics and Political Science Foundation tomorrow and Wednesday that simulates a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2030, the foundation said yesterday. The five retired Taiwanese generals would include retired admiral Lee Hsi-min (李喜明), joined by retired US Navy admiral Michael Mullen and former chief of staff of the Japan Self-Defense Forces general Shigeru Iwasaki, it said. The simulation aims to offer strategic insights into regional security and peace in the Taiwan Strait, it added. Foundation chair Huang Huang-hsiung
PUBLIC WARNING: The two students had been tricked into going to Hong Kong for a ‘high-paying’ job, which sent them to a scam center in Cambodia Police warned the public not to trust job advertisements touting high pay abroad following the return of two college students over the weekend who had been trafficked and forced to work at a cyberscam center in Cambodia. The two victims, surnamed Lee (李), 18, and Lin (林), 19, were interviewed by police after landing in Taiwan on Saturday. Taichung’s Chingshui Police Precinct said in a statement yesterday that the two students are good friends, and Lin had suspended her studies after seeing the ad promising good pay to work in Hong Kong. Lee’s grandfather on Thursday reported to police that Lee had sent
A Chinese ship ran aground in stormy weather in shallow waters off a Philippines-controlled island in the disputed South China Sea, prompting Filipino forces to go on alert, Philippine military officials said yesterday. When Philippine forces assessed that the Chinese fishing vessel appeared to have run aground in the shallows east of Thitu Island (Jhongye Island, 中業島) on Saturday due to bad weather, Philippine military and coast guard personnel deployed to provide help, but later saw that the ship had been extricated, Philippine navy regional spokesperson Ellaine Rose Collado said. No other details were immediately available, including if there were injuries among
RSS