Weekly Roundup: Key Developments in Tech, Politics, and Global Affairs in Taiwan
16 August 2024
Technology
The Semiconductor and AI Industry Are Consuming Electricity! Taipower Chairman: The Power Supply Pressure Will Be The Greatest In The Next Four Years. Is Taiwan Short of Power?
Pegatron Chairman, Tong Zixian has been advocating Taiwan's energy generation ratio of 30% nuclear energy, 30% green energy, and 40% thermal power generation. The latest report released by the Energy Administration of the Ministry of Economic Affairs has revealed that Taiwan will enter an era of explosive power consumption in the next few years.
Taipower estimates that due to the surge in electricity consumption in the semiconductor and artificial intelligence industries, Taiwan’s electricity consumption will grow at an average annual growth rate of 2.8% from this year to 2023, which is three times the average annual growth rate of 0.9% in the past 10 years.
Source: SETN News
https://www.setn.com/News.aspx?NewsID=1514483&utm_campaign=viewallnews
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Financial Times: Manpower shortage crisis in chip manufacturing industry may hinder AI development
The British Financial Time reported that the AI boom is in need of related chip production support. In order to keep up with demand chip manufacturing companies such as TSMC are subjected to manpower shortage in the near future. TSMC saw a 45% increase to about US$7.9 billion (approx. NT$256.3 billion) in its YoY revenue in July.
Although setting up new facilities may increase production, there is a factor that is determining the bottleneck of chip production that not many are aware about. Chip factories require highly skilled personnel with master’s and doctoral degrees in science and engineering to operate them.
According to McKinsey, 160,000 engineers and technical support workers will need to be hired. However currently only about 1,000 new employees join each year. This is far from the 75,000 manpower demand that is expected to be reached in the next five years.
Source: SETN News
https://www.setn.com/News.aspx?NewsID=1514316&utm_campaign=viewallnews
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Supermicro’s market value has fallen by nearly $35 billion! Why did the stock price plummet 20% when revenue growth exceeded expectations?
Super Micro, a major server manufacturer, announced its financial report last week. Although Supermicro benefited from the AI Industry and revenue growth has increased beyond expectations, its gross profit margin has hit a record low. This is mainly caused by the high cost of AI demand and tight competition in the market.
Supermicro’s stock price changes have been volatile throughout the year, it was trading for below US$300 in the beginning of the year, then it was trading for US$1,000 just after 3 months just for it to consolidate around the US$500 level. Experts are saying that Supermicro’s gains are mainly due to the purchasing boom for Huida chips and short-term investments with the basis of high revenue growth forecasts.
Source: Business Weekly
https://www.businessweekly.com.tw/business/blog/3016364
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Politics & Business
Earning 480 million every day, Taiwan’s big 3 shipping companies’ financial results are impressive! Evergreen has made a huge profit of more than 2% of its equity
Evergreen Shipping made big profits in the first 2 quarters of the year. Its second-quarter net profit after tax was 29.45 billion yuan, an annual increase of 478.5%. Benefiting from the surge in freight rates, Taiwan’s big three container shipping companies; Evergreen, Yangming, and Wanhai profited 86.3 billion yuan in total which is equivalent to 480 million yuan daily.
The container shipping industry estimates that global freight rates began to increase sharply in May based on the arrival time of ships which will remain throughout July and August. Although freight rates have recently fallen by about 10%, the continued impact of geopolitics in the Middle East and the tight supply and demand of ships available makes it more likely for high freight rates to continue in the future.
Source: Business Weekly
https://www.businessweekly.com.tw/business/blog/3016388
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It is revealed that thermal power generation accounts for 95% of Energy Produced in Taiwan. Scholars called "nuclear and green partners": Otherwise, Taiwan may not be able to compete with Japan and South Korea.
Unit 1 of the No. 3 Nuclear Power Plant shut down on July 27 and entered the decommissioning stage. Experts such as Ye Zongyu said that the lack of power hinders the development of the AI industry and the proportion of nuclear energy generated decreases. If the proportion of Thermal power generation continues to increase, Taiwan’s exports would be subject to carbon taxes.
The North region is now relying on the fourth natural gas station to address the 4.7 million kilowatts power shortage. According to reports these are the proportions of energy sources as of July 8, thermal power generation: 91%, nuclear energy: 5%, renewable energy and energy storage system: 3.1%. Nuclear power generation in South Korea and Japan is 22% and 33% respectively
Source: Storm News
https://www.storm.mg/article/5221904
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Minister of the Environment: The impact of carbon fees on housing prices is less than 1%, public is urged to report speculative builders
During the National Climate Change Countermeasure Committee first meeting, Environment Minister Peng Qingming said that construction companies are complaining that house prices will increase by 5% to 15% due to carbon fees. Upon further calculation it is discovered that the imposition of carbon fees on house prices will be 1%. Peng Qingming also urged the public to report builders who use carbon fees as a reason to hype up the housing prices to the public to be dealt with.
Source: Storm News
https://www.storm.mg/article/5222590
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International
Google Launches Their First AI Phone, Pixel 9! Packed With Built in AI Features
Google has launched Pixel 9, their first flagship series phone with built in AI features. Powered by the Tensor G4 processor, Pixel 9 is able to understand text, images, audio and other content. This goes hand-in-hand with the available AI functions with image generation capabilities.
Equipped with a new hinge which allows the phone to be completely flat, the Pixel 9 Pro Fold is currently the thinnest foldable phone with the largest display in the market.
Source: Business Weekly
https://www.businessweekly.com.tw/business/blog/3016396
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Nearly 80,000 AI Companies Were Founded and Disappeared in China
In the past 600 days, nearly 80,000 AI companies in China were founded and then closed down. Investors are starting to lose interest investing in the AI sector. According to reports, in the past 3 years, more than 200,000 AI-related companies have been deregistered in China. As of now, there are 1.8 million AI-related companies in China with over 564 million users.
It has been discovered that the result of less investment entering the industry is because of the lack of profitability due to high cost of computing power and high R&D investments.
Source: SETN
https://www.setn.com/News.aspx?NewsID=1514319&utm_campaign=viewallnews
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Will the Fed cut interest rates by 0.25% or 0.5%?
With the annual growth rate of the U.S. Consumer Price Index (CPI) falling below 3% in July, this makes it favorable for the Federal Reserve (Fed) to start cutting interest rates in September. The final decision will not be made until the release of U.S. non-farm payrolls for August which is scheduled to be released on September 6.
The Fed’s interest rate decisions are going to be revealed in the Federal Open Market Operations Committee (FOMC) on September 17th and 18th.
Source: UDN News
https://udn.com/news/story/6811/8164499?from=udn-catebreaknews_ch2