Business

Gordon Moore, co-founder of Intel and titan of silicon valley, dies at 94

Gordon Moore, a pioneer in the microprocessor industry and a cofounder of Intel, which at one time was the world’s largest semiconductor maker, died on Friday at the age of 94, Intel said.

Moore was a giant in the technological transformation of the modern age, helping companies bring evermore powerful chips to smaller and smaller computers.

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An engineer by training, he cofounded Intel in July 1968, eventually serving as president, chief executive and chairman of the board.

Intel, based in Santa Clara, California, said Moore died “surrounded by family at his home in Hawaii.”

In its early days, Intel was known for continuous innovation, growing to become one of the biggest, most important companies in technology.

In an article in 1965, Moore first coined a theory that later became known as “Moore’s Law.” It stated that integrated circuits would essentially double in power every year. He later revised the law to say the doubling would occur every two years.

The axiom held true for decades and became synonymous with the rapid rate of technological change in the modern world.

“All I was trying to do was get that message across, that by putting more and more stuff on a chip we were going to make all electronics cheaper,” Moore said in a 2008 interview.

After earning his PhD from CalTech, Moore and a colleague in 1957 joined Fairchild Semiconductor Laboratory, one of the earliest firms to manufacture commercially viable transistors and integrated circuits.

As the company grew, the seeds were planted for the transformation of the peninsula of land south of San Francisco into what became known as Silicon Valley.

Moore and longtime colleague Robert Noyce struck out on their own in 1968, bringing along a third, Andy Grove, who would become a future Intel CEO.

Moore retired from Intel in 2006.

Over his lifetime, he donated more than $5.1 billion to charitable causes through the foundation he set up with his wife of 72 years, Betty.

“Though he never aspired to be a household name, Gordon’s vision and his life’s work enabled the phenomenal innovation and technological developments that shape our everyday lives,” said Harvey Fineberg, president of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

Leaders of Intel heaped tribute on Moore.

“He was instrumental in revealing the power of transistors, and inspired technologists and entrepreneurs across the decades,” said Intel chief executive Pat Gelsinger.

“He leaves behind a legacy that changed the lives of every person on the planet. His memory will live on,” Gelsinger added on Twitter.

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Business

China’s home-grown, narrow-body C919 completes first commercial passenger flight

China Eastern Airlines Corp Ltd entered China’s home-grown narrow-body C919 jet into passenger service on Sunday and completed its first commercial flight, marking a milestone in the country’s effort to become more self-reliant.
The C919 is the product of state-backed Commercial Aviation Corp of China (COMAC) which began developing the jet 15 years ago to rival Airbus SE’s A320neo and Boeing Co’s 737 MAX single-aisle jet families.

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President Xi Jinping has hailed the project as a triumph of Chinese innovation, while on Sunday state media trumpeted the plane as a symbol of industrial prowess and national pride.
“After generations of endeavor, we finally broke the West’s aviation monopoly and rid ourselves of the humiliation of ‘800 million shirts for one Boeing’,” Beijing Daily wrote, referring to the early years of economic reform around 40 years ago when China manufactured mainly low-value goods.
The C919 took off at 10:32 a.m. (0232 GMT) from Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport where COMAC and China Eastern Airlines are headquartered, and landed two hours later at Beijing Capital Airport, showed flight tracker app Variflight.
“I’m confident about the plane. The flight was smoother than ex-pected,” one of about 130 passengers told state broadcaster CCTV as he disembarked.
The plane is scheduled to return to Shanghai on Sunday, then make a longer two-way flight to the southwestern city of Chengdu on Monday.
Lv Boyuan, a 21-year-old student and aviation enthusiast, was at Shanghai’s airport on Sunday to fly to Chengdu from where he planned to return on the C919 the following day.
“I’ve been really looking forward to its flight, especially because it’s a new-generation aircraft, unlike Boeing and Airbus equiva-lents which have been around for a number of years now,” said Lv.
The C919 made its first flight in 2017 after years of delays and has undergone numerous test flights since.
State-backed China Eastern Airlines ordered five of the jets in March 2021. It took delivery of the first in December and has said it expects to receive the remainder this year.
In total, COMAC had won 1,035 orders from 32 customers as at 2022-end. A company official has since told media the figure exceeds 1,200.
The planemaker expects annual production to reach 150 C919 jets within five years, domestic media reported in January.
Though assembled in China, the C919 relies heavily on Western components, including engines and avionics, from firms including General Electric Co, Safran SA, and Honeywell International Inc.
Li Hanming, an independent expert on Chinese aviation, said most C919 orders were letters of intent from domestic customers. Its few foreign customers include lessor GE Capital Aviation Services Ltd.
“For the C919, the domestic market is big enough,” Li said.
The international market is questionable given that neither European nor US regulators have certificated the aircraft, said Greg Waldron, Asia managing editor of industry publication FlightGlobal.
“Until this happens, key international markets will be closed to the C919,” he said.
The C919’s predecessor, the ARJ21, is a short-haul 90-seat aircraft that entered commercial operation in 2016 and is flown by major Chinese airlines as well as Indonesia’s TransNusa.
The ARJ21’s use in Indonesia indicates the C919’s international future lies mainly in the developing world, Waldron said.
COMAC is also developing a CR929 wide-body jet in collaboration with Russia.

Business

JPMorgan names Omar Fichtali as new investment banking head in Saudi Arabia: Report

JPMorgan Chase & Co. has appointed Omar El Amine Fichtali as head of investment banking in Saudi Arabia, according to an internal memo seen by Bloomberg News.

The move comes weeks after one of the lender’s top bankers in the kingdom, Fahad al-Deweesh, left to join Citigroup Inc. as competition for banking talent in the region’s biggest economy heats up.

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El Amine Fichtali joined JPMorgan’s London office in 2007 with a focus on technology, media and telecommunications investment banking and has worked in various roles with the Middle East and North Africa investment banking team in Dubai and Riyadh.

He will work closely with Bader Alamoudi, senior country officer for Saudi Arabia, and Khalid Fayez, head of corporate banking for JPMorgan in the Kingdom.

A spokeswoman for the bank confirmed the contents of the memo.

Saudi Arabia is becoming an increasingly important market for global banks as the Kingdom embarks on a plan to diversify its economy away from oil by selling stakes in state-owned companies and investing in new industries.

Even as the global financial community contends with layoffs and lower bonuses, banking jobs remain plentiful in the kingdom and salaries are surging.

Wealth funds such as the Public Investment Fund are also actively recruiting.

JPMorgan is working on Saudi Arabia’s biggest initial public offering of the year so far, the $336 million float of generic drugmaker Jamjoom Pharmaceuticals Factory Co.

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Business

China industrial profits slide as weak demand weighs on economy

Profits at industrial firms in China kept falling in the first four months of the year, underlining cooling demand and deepening factory-gate deflation in the world’s second-largest economy.

Industrial profits fell 20.6 percent in the January-April period from the same time frame in 2022, data published Saturday by the National Bureau of Statistics showed.

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The drop was slower than a decline of 21.4 percent logged in the first quarter.

Profits for the single month of April were up 3.7 percent from a year earlier, according to NBS figures. That compared with March’s decline of 19.2 percent.

“The weak recovery of effective demand has continued to weigh on the capacity utilization rate, which, coupled with the difficulty to bring down costs, means more patience is needed for the rebound in industrial profit,” said Bruce Pang, chief economist for Greater China at Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. “The year-on-year growth may not return to the positive territory until the fourth quarter.”

More policy support and stimulus are needed for a full-year gain in industrial profit, Pang said.

China’s post-Covid recovery is faltering, recent data has shown, with export growth weakening and industrial deflation worsening in April.

Falling profits bode ill for the economy’s outlook, and are set to weigh on already weak sentiment among businesses — thus holding them back from investing.

Industrial enterprises in China have been struggling to rebound from last year’s Covid-induced slump, even though factory activity has picked up somewhat.

Still, demand for goods remains sluggish, with the economic rebound mainly led by consumer spending in services. Foreign purchases of Chinese products are slowing as the US and other developed economies seek to “de-risk” from China.

Deteriorating producer deflation has also undercut factories’ ability to boost prices, hurting profits. The producer price index fell 3.6 percent on year in April, the biggest decline since May 2020.

Foreign firms registered a 16.2 percent drop in profits in the January-April period, compared with a 24.9 percent decline in the first quarter.

Profits at private firms fell 22.5 percent in the first four months, while those at state-owned enterprises slipped 17.9 percent, according to NBS data.

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