Tech

Intel weighs boost to investment in Vietnam chip packaging plant

Published

7 months ago

February 10, 2023

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Intel weighs boost to investment in Vietnam chip packaging plant

Intel Corp (INTC.O) is considering a significant increase in its existing $1.5-billion investment in Vietnam to expand its chip testing and packaging plant in the Southeast Asian nation, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

The possible move, which one source said could be worth about $1 billion, would signal a growing role for Vietnam in the global supply chain for semiconductors, as companies push to cut reliance on China and Taiwan because of political risks and trade tension with the United States.

One of the sources said the investment was likely to be made “over the future years” and could be even bigger than $1 billion, while the second person said Intel was also weighing an alternative investment in Singapore and Malaysia, which may be referred to as Vietnam.

Both sources sought anonymity as the plan was not yet public.

Asked about the possible investment plan, Intel told Reuters, “Vietnam is an important part of our global manufacturing network, but we have not announced any new investments.”

Officials of Vietnam’s investment and planning ministry and the provincial government of Ho Chi Minh City, where Intel has an existing plant, were not immediately available for comment.

A statement on the Vietnam government’s official portal was amended on Wednesday to remove a reference to an effort by Ho Chi Minh City to attract $3.3 billion in additional investment from Intel.

The chip packaging and testing factory in Vietnam’s southern commercial hub is Intel’s biggest worldwide. The company is estimated to have invested about $1.5 billion in it so far.

The U.S. chip giant already has extra land where its plant is based and an expansion in Vietnam would help it better manage supply disruptions stemming from relying heavily on a single country or a plant, one of the sources told Reuters, citing internal talks.

One of the sources said Intel was pondering the Vietnam investment while making sure a further expansion abroad would not be seen as a hostile move by Washington, which is pushing to boost the production of chips at home.

AGGRESSIVE PUSH

Vietnam is aggressively pushing to expand its chipmaking industry, courting foreign companies in all the three main segments of assembling, testing and packaging; manufacturing with fabs; and designing, officials said.

A U.S. industry executive told Reuters the country had big potential to grow quickly in the area of chip assembling and designing, whereas he saw developing chip-manufacturing fabs as a remote possibility, with the exception of cheaper-to-build fabs for less sophisticated, bigger chips that are still in high demand, such as those that go into cars.

The executive said Vietnam’s biggest opportunity was in the chip assembling sector to satisfy industry demand to reduce the “over-concentration” of production capacity in China and Taiwan, which together account for 60% of global capacity in that segment.

Designing chips require less capital and more highly skilled workers, and Vietnam was making inroads there too, the executive said, with U.S giant Synopsys having operations there and with local firms expanding fast, including FPT and state-owned Viettel.

Chips and electronics giant Samsung (005930. KS) opened a research facility in Hanoi late last year and has a semiconductors packaging plant in the country.

Following a global shortage of semiconductors in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Intel announced a plan in late 2021 to invest more than $7 billion to build a new chip packaging and testing factory in Malaysia.

That facility is expected to begin production in 2024. Intel also has testing and packaging facilities in China and the United States.

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Tech

UK competition regulator lays out AI principles

Published

5 days ago

September 18, 2023

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UK competition regulator lays out AI principles

Britain’s competition regulator proposed principles to govern new artificial intelligence (AI) models on Monday, including accountability, access and transparency, as it seeks to foster competitive growth in the fast-moving technology.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) started looking at the impact of generative AI applications such as ChatGPT in May to try to ensure the technology benefited businesses and consumers.

The CMA’s chief executive Sarah Cardell said there was real potential for the technology to turbocharge productivity and make millions of everyday tasks easier – but a positive future could not be taken for granted.

“That’s why we have today proposed these new principles and launched a broad programme of engagement to help ensure the development and use of foundation models evolves in a way that promotes competition and protects consumers,” she said.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has touted the UK as a global leader in AI regulation and the country will host an AI safety summit in November.

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Tech

China’s industry ministry to work on standards for the metaverse

Published

5 days ago

September 18, 2023

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China's industry ministry to work on standards for the metaverse

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT)said on Monday that it will form a working group to establish standards for the metaverse sector as Beijing seeks to be a global standards-setter for new technology.

The ministry released a draft proposal to form a working group for the metaverse, shared virtual worlds accessible via the internet, on Monday. The proposal said that the metaverse is one of the nine emerging tech sectors which China should strive to establish standards for.

The metaverse has become one of the hottest tech trends since 2021, but there is yet to be consensus on what qualifies as a metaverse despite the hype, an issue the MIIT highlighted in the proposal.

“[The metaverse industry] faces many challenges,” the MIIT said, “It is urgent to promote healthy and orderly development of the metaverse industry through standardization and guidance.”

It added that the metaverse industry suffers from a lack of clear definitions, which had allowed some capitalists and companies to drum up speculation in the market.

The MIIT also described the metaverse as “an integrated innovation combining various cutting-edge technologies”. It said that the metaverse will spur many innovative business models, new business opportunities and growth for the digital economy.

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Tech

BoE official says public need reassurance on digital pound and privacy

Published

1 week ago

September 13, 2023

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BoE official says public need reassurance on digital pound and privacy

A “national conversation” is needed to assuage public fears that a digital version of the pound would allow the government to spy on them, Bank of England deputy governor designate Sarah Breeden said on Tuesday.

The BoE and Britain’s finance ministry have been consulting on whether and how to introduce a digital pound, probably in the second half of this decade.

But critics of the concept say a digital currency could be used by governments to track what people spend their money on, and make it harder to make payments and purchases using cash.

European Union policymakers have already sought to reassure the public that a digital euro is not a “Big Brother” surveillance project.

“I think on the back of that we need to start a national conversation, actually, because while I’m supportive of that technology, as was apparent in the responses we got to the discussion paper there’s a lot of concern about privacy,” Breeden told a hearing in parliament’s Treasury Select Committee on her appointment.

A digital pound would be the anchor for all money in the digital world to ensure trust in money, she said.

“So analytically, it’s the right thing – I can see a case for it. How you manage the privacy challenges, the role of the state – I think we are at the start of the debate on that,” Breeden said.

“The privacy concerns about programmability, I recognise those as real concerns, and what we need to do … is reassure the public on how privacy is going to be delivered, terms and conditions set in legislation, we must not assume trust in practice,” she told lawmakers.

There should be equal focus on privacy in private-sector digital currencies as well, said Breeden, who is currently an executive director at the BoE.

Eleven countries have already launched digital versions of their currencies and, like the European Central Bank, the U.S. Federal Reserve is considering doing so.

Breeden said the impact on financial stability is also a concern for her and responses to the public consultation will be published towards the end of the year.

Breeden rejected suggestions by critics of a digital currency that it would force out the availability of cash.

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