wall street journalEarlier reportsThe U.S. export controls on advanced chips appear to be severely impacting China's technology industry. With the shortage of high-end artificial intelligence chips reportedly reaching a "serious" level, Beijing is reportedly forced to take even tougher intervention measures.
Government intervention in SMIC's capacity allocation gives Huawei priority.
Sources familiar with the matter told the Wall Street Journal that the Chinese government has begun to intervene in the allocation of production capacity at SMIC, China's largest semiconductor foundry.
Among these efforts, Chinese authorities are attempting to prioritize allocating SMIC's production capacity to Huawei, a tech giant and a state-owned enterprise. Huawei is currently using SMIC's technology and capacity to manufacture its self-developed AI chips, thereby filling the gap left by its inability to obtain high-end chips from American companies such as NVIDIA.
Tech giants under pressure seek alternative solutions
The report points out that Beijing's proactive measures reflect how the US chip ban has indeed "suffocated" Chinese tech giants. Faced with the scarcity of advanced semiconductors, in addition to relying on government intervention to allocate production capacity, many tech companies have had to seek various "workarounds" to maintain the momentum of AI development.
