USA and China: Tech War Game Without Warranty or Return Policy

Nothing Stops Progress and China Chip-Maker SMIC is Copying Nike: Do It and Keep Doing it and building it, they Will Come to Buy it - Updated on 8/7/2024 - 3/5/2023

Oct 10, 2022

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Geostrategic National Interests and Globalized Politics by Who You Know Not by What You Know

No more Ping Pong or Basketball given the thorns in the feet of the US-China relationship changing the talk and walk approaches and the path of mutual understanding and the direction of compromises.

The End Justifies the Means with whatever it takes, Welcome to the Newly New World Order of the 21st Century

Tech War Games Without Warranty or Return Policy

Knowing that the semiconductor industry is of strategic importance for China, the European Union and the United States of America are also implementing decisions towards maintaining the stakes high and building an advance to establish the rules of the game in the semiconductor global supply market to the point that this high tech sector is now considered as an inseparable aspect of National Security consideration.

The US government’s new restrictions on the ability of Nvidia Corp. to sell artificial intelligence chips to Chinese customers threaten to deal a heavy blow to the country’s development of a sweeping range of cutting-edge technologies.

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), the largest chipmaker in China, has reportedly achieved a breakthrough. TechInsight, a Canadian tech media outlet, revealed that SMIC had advanced its technology to a quasi-7-nanometer (nm) process, which might be a stepping stone for a true 7nm process. According to TechInsight, SMIC products made from the quasi-7nm process had been shipped for a year. Some media argued that the SMIC’s advancement showed that the U.S. blockade was too little, too late, and out of date.

There is a big gap between chip consumption and chip manufacturing in China, meaning its chip self-sufficiency rate is low. In 2021, the size of China’s semiconductor market was about $186.5 billion, of which only $31.2 billion worth of chips were manufactured in China, both by foreign and domestic companies – a self-sufficiency rate of 16.7 percent. Furthermore, only $12.3 billion worth of chips were manufactured by China-headquartered companies, accounting for merely 6.6 percent of domestic consumption.

To reach the goal outlined by the “Made in China 2025” initiative, a self-sufficiency rate of 75 percent needs to be achieved by 2030. Under such pressure, it is not difficult to understand why China has subsidized semiconductor companies to build factories through various policy incentives.

if one or two Chinese companies can stand out among the large number of policy-supported foundries, there is a hope that this “national champion” can compete or even dominate the advanced process market. Lenovo in the PC/laptop sector and Huawei and ZTE in communications were all developed using such a model.

Within such an environment of continuous threats, conflict of interests, and market-oriented competition, Chinese authorities are seeking to drive their priorities toward consolidating the acquired technology and advance toward new fields of discoveries to counter and position itself as a model of development for the countries that are still in the search of their own economic progress and economic translation of their social accomplishments and political wills.

The Intelligence Games and Artificial Intelligence for Worldwide Intelligence are shaping trade, the transfer of technology, and the definition of roles and alliances around the world.

China’s Largest Chips Maker

Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), China’s largest chips maker, has started construction of its new 12-inch wafer fab in Tianjin, even as the northern city remains under a partial lockdown to battle the latest wave of COVID-19 infections.

The project, with a total investment of US$7.5 billion, began construction last Saturday, according to a report by Tianjin Daily, the city’s official newspaper. Tianjin has been under partial lockdown to combat COVID-19 since late August.

SMIC said on August 27 that it had entered into a cooperation framework agreement with two local government authorities in the Xiqing district to build the new fab.

The latest coronavirus outbreak is believed to have started at a football game in the city, where two-thirds of participating players were infected, according to local authorities. Up to 252 cases of the Omicron variant of the virus have been traced to a shopping center in the Xiqing district, marking the largest transmission chain during the latest wave.

The Biden administration contemplates a Huawei-caliber ban on China's access to technology that fuels its supercomputing, data center, and AI industrialization. The sweeping export ban will include all global companies that procure US technology, software, or equipment in their semiconductors.

US Plan $50 Billion Investment in CHIPS:

Biden Administration Releases Plan for $50 Billion Investment in Chips U.S. Department of Commerce.

Dr. Said El Mansour Cherkaoui Publications on China Tech Evolution and Development that you can read here at this Newsletter, cherkaouijournal.substack.com

Tech War – US – China Proxy Tech Conflict

More US semiconductor restrictions loom for China. The United States government is expected to impose more semiconductor restrictions on China, after banning Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) from selling advanced chips used for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing work to the world’s second-largest economy.

U.S. Finance Policy Facing High Tech CloudsSaid El Mansour Cherkaoui Oct 3, 2022 •