Category: 3. Business

Seoul, South Korea
 — 

Three billionaires surprised diners when they walked into a popular fried chicken restaurant on Thursday – and picked up everyone’s bill.

Jensen Huang, CEO of the world’s most valuable company, AI chip giant Nvidia, went to the Seoul chicken-and-beer joint with the leaders of two of South Korea’s global tech titans: Samsung Electronics chairman Lee Jae-yong and Hyundai Motor Group executive chair Chung Eui-sun.

Fried chicken paired with ice-cold draft beer, known as “chimaek,” is a must-have for anyone visiting South Korea, and the tech potentates got their fill at Kkanbu Chicken in the heart of the nation’s capital, ahead of the APEC summit in Gyeongju.

“I love fried chicken and beer with my friends, so Kkanbu is a perfect place, right?” Huang told live-streaming passersby as he arrived at the restaurant. As well as being the name of the restaurant chain, “Kkanbu” is a slang word for a very close friend.

The three ate cheese balls, cheese sticks, boneless chicken and a fried chicken along with Korean beer Terra and the local rice spirit soju, according to national news agency Yonhap.

Video from local news outlets showed the trio – combined net worth $195 billion – linking their drinking arms to take a shot of beer, a gesture that, in South Korea, cements friendship while drinking.

Huang, Lee and Chung stepped out to offer chicken and cheese sticks to the assembled crowd.

“The chicken wings was so good. Have you been here before? It’s incredible, right?” Huang said when asked about his favourite items.

“Anyone? Fried chicken?” he offered as he held chicken baskets up.

When Huang rang the “golden bell,” a gesture to pay the bill for everyone in the restaurant, people cheered — though Samsung’s Lee paid the bill and Chung paid for a second round, according to Yonhap.

Fresh from his high-stakes trade talks with US President Donald Trump, Chinese leader Xi Jinping is among Asian heads of government who have descended on Gyeongju, in southern South Korea, for the APEC summit.

Access to cutting-edge AI chips – such as those that have pushed Nvidia to a market cap of about $5 trillion – is among issues being thrashed out between the US and China.

After their dinner at Kkanbu Chicken, the three leaders headed to Nvidia’s GeForce Gamer Festival, where Huang – flanked by Lee and Chung – promised to make a big announcement at the APEC summit on Friday.

“My announcements include my friends and we’re going to do amazing things for the future of Korea,” he told the crowd.

“As we transition our portfolio, and connect our customers to a sustainable future, we need to ensure that today’s business remains productive and competitive in this changing market while we continue to invest in our business for tomorrow,” an AGL spokesperson said.

Sign up here.

Total cuts could be up to 300 roles, The Australian newspaper reported. The AGL spokesperson did not say exactly how many jobs out of its total workforce of about 4,200 would be cut.

“We understand this may be a difficult time for our people and we’re committed to communicating with transparency and respect and providing support throughout the consultation process,” the spokesperson said.

The company, which generates and sells power, has said previously that it plans to spend up to A$20 billion ($13 billion) in the next decade to build out clean energy and storage capacity to replace its ageing coal fleet.

AGL, which has the highest carbon emissions footprint in Australia, separately said on Friday it will buy four new gas turbines from Siemens AB for its Kwinana gas peaking power plant in Western Australia for A$185 million.

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

The Federal Reserve is set to begin expanding its balance sheet again early next year, helping to ease investors’ fears over the daunting borrowing needs of the world’s most important economy.

Fed officials called time on their three-year quantitative tightening programme on Wednesday, with chair Jay Powell acknowledging that the central bank was soon likely to return to becoming a substantial buyer of US Treasuries.

“At a certain point, you’ll want . . . reserves to start gradually growing to keep up with the size of the banking system and the size of the economy,” Powell said.

Fed-watchers think that point could come as soon as the turn of the year.

“We think that the Fed will start buying enough Treasuries to grow the balance sheet again in the first quarter of next year — most likely January and at the latest in March,” said Marco Casiraghi, of Evercore ISI.

Casiraghi added that he expected net purchases of $35bn of Treasuries a month — expanding the Fed’s $6.6tn balance sheet by about $20bn a month, as the Fed will continue to roll off its stock of mortgage-backed securities.

Those purchases will help assure investors who have become worried about the US’s ability to finance its debt payments. More buyers for the bonds should push down yields, making the debt cheaper.

Market anxiety has eased amid expectations the Fed will call time on QT and fund managers respond to signs that budget deficits — averaging about 6 per cent of GDP despite full employment — may improve.

Markets are now “less worried about supply”, said Mark Cabana, head of US rates strategy at Bank of America. “Concerns about the deficit worsening have been cooled due to strong tariff revenues, and the expectation that the Fed will soon start buying [government debt].”

A big rally in 10-year US Treasury bonds since the summer has pushed down their yield, the benchmark for global borrowing costs, from a peak of 4.8 per cent in January to less than 4.1 per cent.

A key driver of the rally has been growing expectations of Federal Reserve interest rate cuts, but the gap between the yields on government bonds and interest rate swaps — an indicator of investor concerns over debt issuance — has also shrunk. 

The additional yield on 10-year Treasuries above that of interest rate swaps of the same maturity has roughly halved from its April peak, to about 0.16 percentage points.

“It does seem like the worst fears have been proven wrong, and that the concerns around forever-rising [sovereign debt] supply could be somewhat overblown,” said Ed Acton, a rates strategist at Citi.

Bond yields and swap rates typically trade closely together, as both reflect longer-term interest rate expectations.

But in countries such as the UK and US, yields have climbed well above swap rates this year, as investors demanded extra compensation for buying record quantities of sovereign debt.

An easing of tension over borrowing has also shown up in the so-called flattening of yield curves on government bonds, as the amount being demanded by investors to lend over a longer timeframe has fallen.

Thirty-year Treasury bonds now offer just 1 percentage point in extra yield relative to 2-year bonds, down from above 1.3 percentage points in September.

Moves by policymakers in the US, UK and Japan to shorten the maturity of government issuance have also helped to soothe concerns over a glut of long-term government debt.

In the UK, the gap between 10-year gilt yields and swap rates has fallen from a peak of almost 0.4 percentage points in April to around 0.25 points, aided by a strong rally in gilts in recent weeks.

The Fed took the decision to halt so-called quantitative tightening amid signs that its efforts to drain liquidity from the financial system were causing strains in short-term funding markets. 

Analysts say the Fed’s return to bond-buying reflects a desire by US lenders to hold more reserves, and would not represent a return to quantitative easing — the policy deployed by the Fed and other central banks to ease financial and economic tensions by buying trillions of dollars’ worth of government debt.

QE is a much more aggressive form of injecting liquidity into the financial system, aimed at countering periods of acute stress.

“The idea would be to have enough reserves in the system to allow for the smooth implementation of monetary policy — it matches what Fed officials have referred to as an ample reserves framework, which is different from QE,” said Casiraghi.

Under the ample reserves regime, the Fed’s balance sheet would expand at about the same rate as nominal GDP — the sum of an economy’s growth and inflation rates.  

Casiraghi added: “In QE, the ratio of reserves to nominal GDP jumps.”  

The end to QT has helped to reignite a popular hedge fund bet on Treasury yields converging with swap rates, according to market participants.

Investors poured into the so-called swap spread trade early this year, wagering that a regulatory overhaul would boost demand for Treasuries by making it less expensive for banks to hold them. 

But the trade blew up as Treasury yields rose following Trump’s “liberation day” announcement — forcing a painful unwind of the trade that fuelled broader market volatility.

The prospect of the Fed ending QT had “directed more flows” into the trade in recent weeks, said Gennadiy Goldberg, head of US rates strategy at TD Securities.

But with the US government debt burden relative to GDP on track to overtake Italy’s later on this decade, and ongoing debt worries in big economies including the UK and France, investors said the positive moves could be just a temporary easing of concerns about debt sustainability.

“The bigger picture is that US fiscal deficits are set to remain ugly as hell for the foreseeable future,” said Mike Riddell, a fund manager at Fidelity International. “Maybe not quite as bad as feared a few months ago, but still unsustainably large.”

Almost 2 million energy bill payers could be owed a share of £240m from old accounts that were closed while still in credit, according to the regulator.

The latest figures from Ofgem show that about 1.9m energy accounts were closed over the past five years, with outstanding credit balances totalling £240m left unclaimed.

The regulator is urging anyone who has moved in recent years to check whether they are owed a refund from their previous account. Some may be owed only a few pounds, but others could be owed more than £100, Ofgem said.

Tim Jarvis, Ofgem’s director general of markets, said that although suppliers “work very hard to return money to people” when they close an account, in line with industry rules, “without the right contact details, they’re stuck”.

“The message is clear – if you’ve moved in the last five years, reach out to your old supplier, provide them with the correct information, and you could be due a refund,” Jarvis said.

Energy bill payers face a difficult winter after the regulator lifted the maximum cap that suppliers can charge their 29 million household customers for each unit of gas and electricity from the start of this month.

The average price cap for households paying by direct debit increased by £35 to £1,755 for a typical annual dual-fuel bill, despite a 2% fall in the wholesale price in the energy markets over the summer, reigniting concerns about energy affordability in the UK.

Ofgem said on Thursday that it would move ahead with plans to clear £500m of debt from about 195,000 people on means-tested benefits who have built up debt of more than £100 during the energy crisis.

The first phase of its scheme could offer debt relief of about £1,200 per account, or about £2,400 per dual-fuel customer, to eligible bill payers. The cost of this policy would be paid for by adding about £5 a year on the average dual-fuel bill by 2027-28.

This measure is expected to make only a small dent in Britain’s deepening energy debt crisis, which reached a record £4.4bn in unpaid bills as of the end of June. The Office for National Statistics found that a record proportion of British households were unable to pay their energy bills by direct debt in April because there was not enough money in their bank accounts.

Taipei [Taiwan], October 31 (ANI): Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) has secured three construction permits for its plan to build a state-of-the-art A14 wafer fab in Taichung, central Taiwan, and is likely to start construction soon, the Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau said on Wednesday, according to a report by Focus Taiwan.

As per the report, Wang Chun-chieh, deputy director general of the science park bureau, said the world’s largest contract chipmaker has received three construction permits: one to build a fab to roll out sophisticated chips, another to build a central utility plant (CUP) to provide water and electricity for the facility and the other to build three office buildings.

The report noted that Wang said that with the three permits, TSMC will be able to begin the construction of its high-speed wafer fab soon, citing a recent briefing to the park authorities by the chipmaker as noting the facility will use the advanced A14 process.

Wang’s comments came after the National Science and Technology Council (NSTS) confirmed on Oct. 18 that TSMC had applied for permission from the science authorities to build the A14 fab.

Citing information on the TSMC website, the report said that the A14 technology is designed to drive artificial intelligence transformation by delivering faster computing and greater power efficiency.

“The A14 technology, or 1.4-nanometer process, will be 15 per cent faster than the 2nm process at the same power,” the report quoted TSMC. “With a 30 per cent power reduction, the 1.4nm chip will have the same speed as the 2nm, which is scheduled to start commercial production later this year. “

The 3nm process is the latest technology for which TSMC has started mass production. The report noted that the company’s advanced processes, including 3nm, 5nm and 7nm, are in high demand during the current artificial intelligence development boom and the company has intensified efforts to upgrade its technologies to meet growing demand.

The science park has completed preparatory work for the A14 fab site with TSMC conducting joint inspections and the report said the chipmaker is likely to kick off construction work soon.

Taichung City Government has said TSMC’s new fab is expected to create NT$485.7 billion (USD 15.85 billion) per year in production value and about 4,500 job openings.

According to the report, TSMC is aiming to begin construction of the A14 fab at the end of the year and start mass production in the second half of 2028. A recruitment campaign has begun for the new facility, Wccftech said.

“To a market estimate, TSMC will spend USD 49 billion to build the plant,” the report said. (ANI)

(This content is sourced from a syndicated feed and is published as received. The Tribune assumes no responsibility or liability for its accuracy, completeness, or content.)

Stay informed with free updates

Simply sign up to the Chinese economy myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.

China’s factory activity declined for the seventh month in a row in October on weak domestic demand, complicating the economic outlook for policymakers in Beijing as they grapple with a trade war with the US.

The purchasing managers’ index fell to 49 this month, according to the official data released on Friday, missing the average forecast from analysts surveyed by Bloomberg of 49.6 and trailing September’s figure of 49.8. A reading below 50 represents a contraction in activity.

The results were driven by seasonal factors, such as a weeklong public holiday at the beginning of the month, as well as “a more complex international environment”, said Huo Lihui, chief statistician of the service industry survey centre of the National Bureau of Statistics.

The softer activity comes as China has pledged to step up high-tech manufacturing and increase “self reliance” in science and industry as it pursues a deepening rivalry with the US for economic supremacy.

President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump on Thursday agreed to a ceasefire in their trade war at a summit in South Korea, suspending export controls, port fees and some tariff. But analysts believe that the truce will be difficult to maintain given the countries’ deep differences.

China has relied on manufacturing and exports to deliver economic growth in the face of a slowdown in the property market that has undermined household confidence and spending.

Despite the slowdown reflected by the PMI data, which is in its longest continuous decline in more than nine years, activity in high-tech and equipment manufacturing — two sectors prioritised by Beijing’s industrial policies — expanded this month, the National Bureau of Statistics said.

Consumer-related sectors also grew. Beijing has promoted extensive subsidies for consumers in a push to boost domestic demand.

The statistics bureau said the non-manufacturing PMI, which includes construction and services, rose 0.1 percentage points in October to 50.1, indicating an expansion.

This was supported by sectors such as railway and air transportation, accommodation, culture, sports and entertainment. The country had an eight-day national holiday this year starting on October 1 that included the mid-autumn festival, traditionally a period of peak travel and spending.

China’s exports have proved resilient during the trade war, expanding 8.3 per cent in September on a year earlier. But authorities have become increasingly concerned that aggressive competition among producers is driving deflation by pushing down prices.

Policymakers have begun intervening in industries such as electric vehicles and solar panels to try to reduce predatory pricing, but economists worry that doing so could also deal a blow to activity.

The statistics office said new orders in manufacturing, raw materials inventories and the factories employment index declined in October, pointing to depressed activity.

“The official PMIs suggest that China’s economy lost some momentum” in October, said Capital Economics in a note. “Some of this weakness may reverse in the near term, but any boost to exports from the latest US-China trade ‘deal’ is likely to be modest and wider headwinds to growth will persist.”

Households in Darwin spend more on electricity than most homes in Australia, but adoption of a range of home upgrades could see their bills slashed by almost 90%.

Electricity bills in the Northern Territory (NT) are already among the highest in the country, and they are set to rise further. In its 2025 Budget, the NT government announced regulated prices will climb by 3% in 2025-26. However, recent research by the Institute for Energy Economics & Financial Analysis (IEEFA) shows that Darwin households could dramatically reduce their bills by adding rooftop solar and battery storage, and upgrading to more efficient electric appliances. 

These upgrades would also have wider benefits for the Darwin-Katherine electricity grid, helping to stabilise demand and reduce the need for costly grid-scale investment. In addition, the switch to renewable energy sources would reduce the NT’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Darwin stands out nationally for its high household electricity use. The tropical climate drives significant cooling needs: around half of a typical household’s electricity demand is for cooling alone. Hot water accounts for another 17%, while cooking, lighting and other appliances make up the rest. 

The high consumption means bills are usually quite high. A typical Darwin home spends around $3,500 per year on power, much of it going towards cooling. While NT households enjoy relatively low daily supply charges and similar volumetric charges compared with other jurisdictions, their high overall power use means bills remain substantial. 

However there are major opportunities to reduce household energy bills.

By switching existing appliances to efficient electric alternatives, including heat pump hot water systems rather than resistive electric hot water systems, our modelling found a typical household could save around $400 a year. This bill reduction mostly arises from the fact that heat pump hot water systems use around one third of the energy that resistive electric equivalents do.

Further savings are made by adding rooftop solar. Our modelling found an 8-kilowatt (kW) system could typically reduce bills by roughly $2,100 annually. This arises from the household’s reduced reliance on grid electricity and the income it receives from exporting solar energy to the grid. 

Adding a 10-kilowatt-hour (kWh) battery to this system creates further bill reductions of approximately $600. This arises because the household is able to consume more of its solar energy after dark, slashing its overnight demand for grid electricity.

All these upgrades combined – solar, storage and efficient appliances – brings the final bill down to around $370 per year, a staggering 89% reduction.

So what is the catch? Why aren’t all households doing this right now? 

Well, the upgrades do require significant upfront investment. However, the payback periods are compelling – meaning the upgrades are worthwhile.

A heat pump hot water system plus induction cooktop costs around $2,200 after federal government rebates for the hot water system are accounted for, and pays for itself in about 5.4 years (or 6.7 years without rebates).

Data from SolarChoice suggests that an 8kW rooftop solar system costs roughly $11,000 after rebates in Darwin – more expensive than in other capital cities – but it still pays for itself in just over five years (6.6 years before rebates). If a 10kWh battery (about $6,700 after federal government rebates) is packaged with the solar system, this brings the total payback to 6.3 years, within the battery’s 13-year expected lifetime. 

Altogether, a household investing in all these upgrades could achieve near-elimination of its annual power bill – its bills would be just 11% of their starting point before any upgrades. 

The savings for an individual household are huge. However, the benefits of these household energy upgrades extend beyond individual households. 

Solar, storage and efficient appliances reduce electricity demand at peak times, easing pressure on the grid.

The typical Darwin household we modelled had a peak demand of about 2.5kW on an average day in January, occurring at around 6pm. Switching to more efficient appliances (and setting the new heat pump hot water system to run in the middle of the day) brought this down slightly, to 2.3kW. Rooftop solar reduces peaks further to around 2kW, since rooftop solar still generates significant power into the afternoon/evening peak. When a battery is added, evening peaks on an average day effectively disappear.

This pattern is reasonably consistent across the year thanks to the consistency of a typical Darwin household’s power demand and Darwin’s strong solar resource. 8kW of rooftop solar consistently produces more than enough energy to charge the 10kWh battery fully, and household demand is usually high enough to deplete it. That means no evening imports are typically required from the grid and little surplus remains for export. 

However with a larger battery, which is increasingly common in Australia, there could be export potential in the evenings. With the NT introducing a feed-in tariff of 18.66 cents per kWh for regulated households and businesses that export electricity to the grid between 3pm and 9pm, households with large batteries could make financial gains from exporting back to the grid in the evening.

Peak demand reductions arising from solar and storage have major implications for system planning in the NT. It can reduce pressure on networks and large-scale generation resources, and reduce some costs associated with those.

Household batteries can also help soak up solar generation during the day, lifting minimum demand and stabilising the system. 

There is also significant untapped potential in improving the thermal efficiency of NT housing. Poor insulation and building design mean many Darwin households use more energy for cooling than necessary. We found that the difference between a 2-star and 7-star home (under the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme) was a 26% reduction in energy bills and 30% reduction in peak demand. 

Better housing design and thermal efficiency upgrades could provide bill relief for the largest component of household energy use in Darwin, air conditioning, while easing pressure on the grid. 

Improving building standards could be a key lever to enable this. The NT is lagging behind other states in building standards – while most jurisdictions now require 7-star efficiency for new builds, the NT only requires ratings of 5 stars for houses and 3.5 stars for apartments. 

While there is significant opportunity for Darwin households to reduce their bills, many households cannot undertake these upgrades due to upfront cost barriers. Others in rented dwellings are unable to make decisions around home upgrades. Targeted measures would be required to support these households to access these benefits. Improved appliance and building standards would also help these households.

While our study was focused on Darwin, other areas of the NT could similarly benefit from these household energy upgrades. While the mix of climate drivers and demand patterns differs across regions, our modelling found that the total savings potential from upgrades is surprisingly consistent nationwide.

Darwin households face high electricity needs and rising bills, but solutions are at hand. Efficient electric appliances, rooftop solar and batteries could cut bills by nearly 90%, while also reducing peak demand and supporting the grid. 

Expanding financial support for household energy upgrades and improving building and appliance standards could support households in undertaking these upgrades. This would reduce bills, reduce emissions, and strengthen the resilience of the Territory’s energy system.

TD joins as founding member of sAIpien to explore how AI can responsibly transform financial services at scale.

At the MIT Media Lab, we believe technology should serve humanity—ethically, inclusively, and imaginatively. That’s why we’re excited to welcome TD Bank Group as a new member of the Lab and a founding collaborator in sAIpien, our Scalable AI program for the Intelligent Evolution of Networks.

This initiative brings together a cross-sector community to advance research in artificial intelligence with a focus on trust, transparency, responsible data governance, and human-AI collaboration. TD joins as the financial services sector’s founding voice in the program, engaging with researchers to explore how AI might reimagine banking experiences in the decade ahead.

This reflects our ongoing commitment to and investment in AI and generative technologies.

“This reflects our ongoing commitment to and investment in AI and generative technologies,” said Luke Gee, Chief Analytics & AI Officer at TD. “We’re proud to engage actively with MIT’s best and brightest minds to test emerging models, action bold ideas, and help define how responsible, human-centric AI could help transform the future of banking.”

TD’s membership supports research into scalable, inclusive AI systems and will contribute to initiatives focused on AI talent development and future applications of emerging technologies.

“We’re thrilled to welcome TD,” said Hossein Rahnama, Visiting Professor and head of the sAIpien program. 

Financial services is a critical domain where AI can make a meaningful difference. 

“TD’s insights will help shape technologies and frameworks that aim to improve people’s lives and experiences.”

Gold steadied near $4,000 an ounce as traders weighed a US-China trade truce that failed to quash concerns about long-term competition between the world’s two largest economies.

Spot gold pared losses after declining as much as 0.9% an ounce on Friday during Asian hours. Chinese leader Xi Jinping called for stable supply chains in his first public remarks after meeting with US President Donald Trump.