Chinese telecoms equipment supplier Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday said it planned to establish a subsidiary and a research and development center in Taiwan in an effort to tap into the nation’s talent pool and to benefit from the growing telecommunications market.
The remarks came as the nation prepares to auction off the fourth-generation (4G) spectrum before the end of next year, meaning a new business opportunity for telecoms equipment suppliers.
Currently, Huawei sells its telecoms equipment, such as base stations and end devices including handsets and Wi-Fi dongles, through its sole agent, Xunwei Technologies Co (訊崴), as prior plans to set up a local subsidiary were thwarted by national security concerns.
“Huawei maintains an open but cautious attitude toward setting up of a subsidiary in Taiwan … We respect the Taiwan government’s attitude towards this matter,” Scott Sykes, vice president of Huawei’s corporate media affairs, said yesterday in Taipei. “Taiwan is a huge market and has huge amount of talents.”
With a local subsidiary, Huawei would be able to deepen its ties to local clients and enhance cooperation with local component suppliers.
Huawei operates 23 R&D centers worldwide, including a newly-announced facility in Helsinki, where the Chinese company plans to invest 70 million euros to develop software for mobile devices over the next five years.
In Taiwan, Huawei is also eyeing the new 4G business opportunity.
“We are looking forward to the second half of next year when it is anticipated that 4G LTE [Long -Term Evolution] spectrum will become available in Taiwan. We are very much looking forward to that and participating in the roll-out of the 4G LTE network,” Sykes said.
“Some of those conversations [with local telecoms operators] are already happening. We want to position ourselves as a key supplier,” Sykes said.
Of the 90 commercial 4G Long- Term Evolution (LTE) networks now around the world, Huawei supplied equipment to 40, including the world’s first commercial LTE network launched by Sweden’s TeliaSonera in 2009, the Shenzhen, China-based company said.
The firm supplies base stations to local telecoms companies including Far EasTone Telecommunications Co (遠傳電信), the nation’s No. 3 telecoms company, and marginal player Vibo Inc (威寶).
Huawei has seized less than a 1 percent share of Taiwan’s telecoms equipment market, losing to big rivals Alcatel-Lucent and Ericsson.
Last year, Huawei purchased US$3.5 billion in components from local manufacturers including Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), handset chip supplier MediaTek Inc (聯發科) and set-top box maker Prime Electronics and Satellitics Inc (百一).
COMPETITION: AMD, Intel and Qualcomm are unveiling new laptop and desktop parts in Las Vegas, arguing their technologies provide the best performance for AI workloads Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD), the second-biggest maker of computer processors, said its chips are to be used by Dell Technologies Inc for the first time in PCs sold to businesses. The chipmaker unveiled new processors it says would make AMD-based PCs the best at running artificial intelligence (AI) software. Dell has decided to use the chips in some of its computers aimed at business customers, AMD executives said at CES in Las Vegas on Monday. Dell’s embrace of AMD for corporate PCs — it already uses the chipmaker for consumer devices — is another blow for Intel Corp as the company
ADVANCED: Previously, Taiwanese chip companies were restricted from building overseas fabs with technology less than two generations behind domestic factories Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp, would no longer be restricted from investing in next-generation 2-nanometer chip production in the US, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. However, the ministry added that the world’s biggest contract chipmaker would not be making any reckless decisions, given the weight of its up to US$30 billion investment. To safeguard Taiwan’s chip technology advantages, the government has barred local chipmakers from making chips using more advanced technologies at their overseas factories, in China particularly. Chipmakers were previously only allowed to produce chips using less advanced technologies, specifically
MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday said it is teaming up with Nvidia Corp to develop a new chip for artificial intelligence (AI) supercomputers that uses architecture licensed from Arm Holdings PLC. The new product is targeting AI researchers, data scientists and students rather than the mass PC market, the company said. The announcement comes as MediaTek makes efforts to add AI capabilities to its Dimensity chips for smartphones and tablets, Genio family for the Internet of Things devices, Pentonic series of smart TVs, Kompanio line of Arm-based Chromebooks, along with the Dimensity auto platform for vehicles. MeidaTek, the world’s largest chip designer for smartphones
BRAVE NEW WORLD: Nvidia believes that AI would fuel a new industrial revolution and would ‘do whatever we can’ to guide US AI policy, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp cofounder and chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) on Tuesday said he is ready to meet US president-elect Donald Trump and offer his help to the incoming administration. “I’d be delighted to go see him and congratulate him, and do whatever we can to make this administration succeed,” Huang said in an interview with Bloomberg Television, adding that he has not been invited to visit Trump’s home base at Mar-a-Lago in Florida yet. As head of the world’s most valuable chipmaker, Huang has an opportunity to help steer the administration’s artificial intelligence (AI) policy at a moment of rapid change.