EUROPEAN UNION
Inflation fight remains ‘key’
In policy recommendations to be given to member states yesterday, seen by Bloomberg News, the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, was to tell national governments that “it will take time for price pressures to disappear” so “combating inflation remains a key policy priority in the coming period.” Officials reiterated that fiscal measures taken to aid consumers and businesses through the energy crisis should be phased out this year, and that they should revert to prudent policies for their public finances to ensure long-term debt sustainability. The annual recommendations to capitals around the region differ from last year’s by elevating inflation as a key challenge for governments to help tackle. A turbulent geopolitical context, the ensuing energy crisis and implementation of the EU’s unprecedented 800 billion euros (US$862 billion) recovery fund have been dominant themes since the previous report.
GERMANY
Business outlook sours
The country’s business outlook deteriorated for the first time since October last year, as a struggling manufacturing sector threatens to undermine the recovery of Europe’s biggest economy. An expectations gauge by the Ifo institute slipped to 88.6 this month from 91.7 the previous month, worse than expected by every single economist in a Bloomberg survey. A measure of current conditions also slipped. “The mood in the German economy has taken a significant hit,” Ifo president Clemens Fuest said in a statement yesterday. “The German economy is skeptical about the summer.”
TECHNOLOGY
Apple, Broadcom join forces
Apple Inc on Tuesday announced a multibillion-dollar collaboration with US tech firm Broadcom Inc to make “cutting-edge” components for wirelessly connecting to high-speed 5G telecom networks. The iPhone maker did not specify exactly how many billions of dollars it would put into the Broadcom alliance, but said it is part of a commitment to invest in the US economy. “All of Apple’s products depend on technology engineered and built here in the United States, and we’ll continue to deepen our investments in the US economy because we have an unshakable belief in America’s future,” Apple chief executive Tim Cook said in a statement. The alliance would include designing and manufacturing sophisticated radio frequency components and other “cutting-edge wireless connectivity” parts in the US, Apple said.
UNITED STATES
White House hosts forum
The White House hosted a forum for workers whose employers use automated systems to monitor them, and plans a broader effort to ask Americans what priorities the government should pursue regarding artificial intelligence as President Joe Biden weighs new regulations on emerging workplace technologies. The meeting with White House officials on Tuesday would feature employees from call centers, warehouses, healthcare, gig work and the trucking industry, as the administration seeks to better understand how companies deploy automated technology for worker surveillance. Companies including Amazon.com Inc and Uber Technologies Inc have come under criticism from labor groups who say technologies designed to improve performance and efficiency can push them to accept unsafe working conditions.
The New Taiwan dollar is on the verge of overtaking the yuan as Asia’s best carry-trade target given its lower risk of interest-rate and currency volatility. A strategy of borrowing the New Taiwan dollar to invest in higher-yielding alternatives has generated the second-highest return over the past month among Asian currencies behind the yuan, based on the Sharpe ratio that measures risk-adjusted relative returns. The New Taiwan dollar may soon replace its Chinese peer as the region’s favored carry trade tool, analysts say, citing Beijing’s efforts to support the yuan that can create wild swings in borrowing costs. In contrast,
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
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