China is pushing hard to build more of its own artificial-intelligence chips, with new money and new factories aimed at reducing reliance on foreign suppliers.
According to Digitimes, SJ Semiconductor, a Chinese advanced packaging maker, has started a US$1.5 billion project focused on 3DIC technology for AI chips. Advanced packaging and 3DIC — a method of stacking chip components in three dimensions — have become critical to squeezing more performance out of modern AI processors, especially as raw chip manufacturing faces limits.
Separately, the South China Morning Post reports that Chinese chip designer Biren is seeking US$900 million in funding to support its push into graphics processing units, or GPUs, in a bid to challenge Nvidia. GPUs are the workhorse chips behind most AI systems, and Nvidia currently dominates that global market.
Digitimes also reports that China's chip equipment makers are ramping up expansion, with booming demand for AI and memory chips fueling growth in the domestic market. Chip equipment is the specialized machinery used to actually build semiconductors, so expansion there signals investment across the whole supply chain, not just chip design.
Together, the moves point to a coordinated effort spanning design (Biren), packaging (SJ Semiconductor) and manufacturing equipment.
Why it matters: as the United States restricts China's access to the most advanced AI chips, these investments show China trying to build a self-sufficient AI hardware industry — a shift that could reshape the global balance of computing power.