MANUFACTURING
Sentiment improving
The business sentiment of Taiwan’s manufacturing sector showed signs of improvement in July, as optimism toward a peak season for the global high-tech industry outranked concern over the US-China trade war, the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) said on Tuesday. Citing its latest survey, the institute said the nation’s economy is recovering at a stable pace, with many manufacturers more upbeat about their operations and the overall business climate.
OFFICE EQUIPMENT
Aurora markets 3D printers
Office equipment sales agent Aurora Group (震旦行) on Tuesday announced that it has acquired distribution rights for two international 3D printing vendors: Israel-based Nano Dimension Ltd and Mcor Technologies Ltd of Ireland. It said it has also launched its “Aurora 3D Multi Color” in Taiwan and China to more aggressively pursue the cross-strait 3D printing market. Aurora shares rose 17.58 percent last week in Taipei trading, closing at a record-high NT$109 on Friday.
LAND DEVELOPMENT
CHT reactivating assets
Chunghwa Telecom Co (CHT, 中華電信) is reportedly reactivating its land asset development, with total investment of between NT$7 billion and NT$8 billion (US$227.78 million to US$260.30 million). The Chinese-language Commercial Times last week reported that the telecom has selected sites to develop three smart office buildings, and construction would be carried out by its subsidiary Light Era Development Co (光世代建設). It has also selected three more sites to develop into social housing projects, the paper said. The company would neither confirm nor deny the report.
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
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