TECHNOLOGY
Sony board head to retire
Sony Corp board chairman Howard Stringer, who became the first non-Japanese executive to lead the company, said he would retire in June. Stringer, 71, will step down at the company’s annual shareholder meeting, the executive said on Friday in a speech at the Japan Society in New York. Kazuo Hirai, 52, succeeded him as chief executive officer almost a year ago. A surprise choice for CEO in June 2005, the Welsh-born Stringer struggled to bring Sony into a digital age where rivals offered phones and TVs with more features at often lower prices. Stringer said he would probably sit on boards in the healthcare and education fields, and would continue as chairman of the American Film Institute, among other pursuits.
CONSULTANCY
IBM to focus on data services
International Business Machines Corp (IBM) CEO Ginni Rometty sees “big data” services, which let customers mine vast troves of information to make better decisions, as the company’s biggest focus this year. “I want you to think about data as the next natural resource,” she told the audience of business and political leaders. Data-based insight helped reduce crime by 30 percent in Memphis, Tennessee, and correctly predicted the outcome of swing states for US President Barack Obama’s campaign, she said. For IBM, the capabilities are helping it break into new overseas markets and sell services covering a wider range of tasks — from traffic management to weather monitoring to payroll. About 80 percent of growth is coming from outside the US, she said.
BRAZIL
Staple food tax cut
Authorities are cutting all federal taxes on staple foods in a bid to tame inflation, after a report on Friday showed consumer prices rose more than analysts forecast for an eighth straight month. A weaker currency, record low borrowing costs and US$23 billion in tax cuts failed to kick-start the economy last year. Instead, the measures helped fuel inflation that is running faster than in Mexico, Colombia or Chile and approaching the 6.5 percent upper limit of the central bank’s target range. Eliminating the 9.25 percent PIS/Cofins taxes on staple foodstuffs will both rein in prices and stimulate the economy as Brazilians improve their ability to save and consume, President Dilma Rousseff said. The measure will reduce tax revenue by 7.3 billion reais (US$3.7 billion) annually. Consumer prices rose 0.6 percent last month, above the 0.49 percent forecast from 44 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, the national statistics agency said in Rio de Janeiro on Friday.
RESTAURANTS
McDonald’s sales steady
McDonald’s Corp, the world’s largest restaurant chain, said sales at stores open at least 13 months fell less than analysts estimated last month as low prices kept consumers coming to restaurants amid a weak economy. Global same-store sales fell 1.5 percent, the Oak Brook, Illinois-based company said on Friday in a statement. Analysts projected a 1.6 percent drop, the average of 13 estimates compiled by Consensus Metrix. McDonald’s sales were helped by “everyday affordable prices,” CEO Don Thompson said in Friday’s release.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) would not produce its most advanced technologies in the US next year, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. Kuo made the comment during an appearance at the legislature, hours after the chipmaker announced that it would invest an additional US$100 billion to expand its manufacturing operations in the US. Asked by Taiwan People’s Party Legislator-at-large Chang Chi-kai (張啟楷) if TSMC would allow its most advanced technologies, the yet-to-be-released 2-nanometer and 1.6-nanometer processes, to go to the US in the near term, Kuo denied it. TSMC recently opened its first US factory, which produces 4-nanometer
GREAT SUCCESS: Republican Senator Todd Young expressed surprise at Trump’s comments and said he expects the administration to keep the program running US lawmakers who helped secure billions of dollars in subsidies for domestic semiconductor manufacturing rejected US President Donald Trump’s call to revoke the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act, signaling that any repeal effort in the US Congress would fall short. US Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who negotiated the law, on Wednesday said that Trump’s demand would fail, while a top Republican proponent, US Senator Todd Young, expressed surprise at the president’s comments and said he expects the administration to keep the program running. The CHIPS Act is “essential for America leading the world in tech, leading the world in AI [artificial
REACTIONS: While most analysts were positive about TSMC’s investment, one said the US expansion could disrupt the company’s supply-demand balance Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) new US$100 billion investment in the US would exert a positive effect on the chipmaker’s revenue in the medium term on the back of booming artificial intelligence (AI) chip demand from US chip designers, an International Data Corp (IDC) analyst said yesterday. “This is good for TSMC in terms of business expansion, as its major clients for advanced chips are US chip designers,” IDC senior semiconductor research manager Galen Zeng (曾冠瑋) said by telephone yesterday. “Besides, those US companies all consider supply chain resilience a business imperative,” Zeng said. That meant local supply would
Servers that might contain artificial intelligence (AI)-powering Nvidia Corp chips shipped from the US to Singapore ended up in Malaysia, but their actual final destination remains a mystery, Singaporean Minister for Home Affairs and Law K Shanmugam said yesterday. The US is cracking down on exports of advanced semiconductors to China, seeking to retain a competitive edge over the technology. However, Bloomberg News reported in late January that US officials were probing whether Chinese AI firm DeepSeek (深度求索) bought advanced Nvidia semiconductors through third parties in Singapore, skirting Washington’s restrictions. Shanmugam said the route of the chips emerged in the course of an
RSS