A corporate database revealed on Monday that China has invested over $47 billion in the nation’s largest-ever chip investment fund, reflecting Beijing’s goal of becoming self-sufficient in the vital field of semiconductor manufacturing.
Semiconductors are an essential component of today’s economy, found in everything from cars and weapons to mobile phones and home appliances.
With ties between the two biggest economies in the world deteriorating recently, the chips sector is finding itself more and more entangled in the competition between the US and China for technological superiority.
With Washington seeking to cut Chinese companies off from supply chains that give it access to advanced US technology, Beijing has ploughed billions into developing homegrown chipmakers.
China’s finance ministry as well as a host of state-owned banks and other businesses have invested 344 billion yuan ($47.48 billion) into the third phase of the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, according to information published by business data provider Tianyancha on Monday.
Incorporated on Friday, the fund’s third phase is bigger than the sum of its first two incarnations.
Bloomberg revealed last year that an earlier phase had planned to invest 12.9 billion yuan in semiconductor producer Yangtze Memory Technologies Co.
According to Tianyancha, the main shareholder in the fund’s most recent phase is China’s Ministry of Finance, with additional investments coming from state-owned firms in Beijing, Shanghai, and the southern tech metropolis of Shenzhen.
