By Emilio Crespo
On July 1, China puts into effect tough controls on exports and investments in technology that will limit its juicy market and its competitive companies. North American multinationals are left out. Meta was already blocked last month from purchasing the Chinese artificial intelligence company Manus.
In the semiconductor industry and advanced chips for computing and AI, the US advantage seems insurmountable. But Chinese companies, led by SMIC and a subsidiary of Huawei, have just assured that, in five years, they will make microprocessors in the super-dense category of 1.4 nanometers, the same objective as Western firms.
Beijing is arming itself with regulations and now counterattacks after circumventing Washington’s restrictions on manufacturing techniques and cutting-edge processors for seven years. The North American Government admitted in May that advanced chips such as Blackwell from Nvidia, the dominant AI firm, reached companies in the Asian country through subsidiaries from other nations. That cracked blockade has spurred developments – and copies – in China thanks to state support unparalleled in the West.
The Huawei case seems to be repeated. In 2019, the US banned it from using Android and Google apps on its phones. But in a few months it made its own system, cloned from the American one, and although its international sales suffered, the enormous domestic market kept it in the global top 10.
The microprocessor war also has a nationalist aspect for Beijing. The largest company in the sector, whose production and patents are, today, irreplaceable, is TSMC, based in Taiwan and one of the main assets of that independent and democratic island that China wants to recover.