At Semicon China in Shanghai, an annual gathering of the chip industry, China’s top semiconductor executives attending called for tighter collaboration with their global peers, but none of them addressed the elephant in the room: growing U.S. export curbs on advanced chip technology. The U.S. is planning to intensify sanctions against Chinese chip firms. The Biden Administration may blacklist several semiconductor companies connected to Huawei Technologies. Chinese chip companies are excited about the progress made by U.S. chip design company Nvidia, founded and led by Taiwan-born American businessman Jensen Huang. “China’s semiconductor market belongs to the world, while the world’s semiconductor market also belongs to Chinese companies,” Chen Nanxiang, Chairman of China’s top memory chip maker Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp said. He added that speeches made previously by Huang convinced him about the future of the global semiconductor market, which Semicon China projected will top USD1 trillion by 2030 on the back of AI-related chip demand.
Nvidia developed three new data-center graphics processing units – the H20, L20 and L2 – specifically for Chinese customers after its A800 and H800 GPUs, tailor-made for Chinese clients to comply with an earlier version of U.S. export controls, were banned from being sold to China in October. While Nvidia is not allowed to export many of its best chips to China, including the new Blackwell GPUs B200 and GB200, the powerful chips raised major attention in the country amid an intensifying AI race with the U.S. Neither Nvidia nor Huawei are taking part in this year’s edition of Semicon China. New developments in AI and electric vehicles will boost demand for chips, with global semiconductor sales expected to grow between 13% to 16% this year to reach around USD600 billion after an 11% drop last year, according to Ju Long, President of Semicon China. Global sales of semiconductor equipment dropped by a lower-than-expected 1.9% last year, thanks to a 28% jump in demand from China to USD36 billion, Ju said.
China, the world’s largest semiconductor market, relies heavily on imports to meet its demand for advanced chips, tools and software, making the country vulnerable to U.S. sanctions. The global chip tool market is still monopolized by foreign companies, including Dutch firm ASML and U.S. firms Lam Research, Applied Materials and KLA, which together control 85% of the market, according to Zhao Jinrong, President of Naura Technology Group, a key tool supplier to Chinese foundries. However, none of the keynote speakers at Semicon directly mentioned U.S. sanctions or their impact on China’s chip industry.
This year’s Semicon China has brought together more than 1100 exhibitors, mostly domestic companies. Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC), China’s top foundry, is not an exhibitor this year despite being based in Shanghai, the South China Morning Post reports.
