American authorities are methodically denying access to advanced lithographic technologies to Chinese developers who can compete with American companies in the field of high-performance computing. The Chinese company Moore Threads Technology, which finds itself in such a situation, argues that Chinese industry can offer viable ways out of the crisis.
Image source: Moore Threads Technology
Moore Threads Technology co-founder Dong Longfei, formerly of Nvidia, expressed hope at a Chinese industry event this week that the combined efforts of the Chinese government, industry and academia will eventually solve the country’s major chip production problems. “Unlike chips for smartphones, GPUs do not require advanced technical processes – they can be made using chiplets,” explained a representative of Moore Threads Technology, which has been under sanctions since October 2023. It was founded in 2020, but by the fall of 2023 it lost access to the services of TSMC, which could produce modern graphics processors for it used in computing accelerators.
As recently reported, this month TSMC suspended service to all Chinese artificial intelligence customers who ordered 7nm and higher-end chips from it. This practice has long taught Chinese developers to hide where their chips are made.
Representatives of Tianfeng Securities note that even in the face of increasing sanctions, TSMC’s revenue in the Chinese direction has grown sharply this year. Experts emphasize that the Chinese market should remain open to global companies in the semiconductor sector even in the face of tightening Western sanctions. The South Korean economy is also heavily dependent on the export of semiconductor products to China, and a significant portion of Korean-brand memory chips are produced in the second country.
BASiC Semiconductor founder He Weiwei admitted that the company was forced to spend between $2.8 and $4.1 billion to support Chinese manufacturers of chips and materials for their production due to concerns about further strengthening of US sanctions that could interfere with the order of chips from TSMC. Chinese chip suppliers are already having to deal with U.S. automakers refusing to purchase their products based on country of origin.