China-made Chips

Previously, Chinese companies wishing to have high-end wafers regenerated needed to send them to Japan and other locations. Now, the capability is available locally in China.

Tencent said Friday that it has some attempts at chip development in specific areas, such as AI acceleration and video codecs, based on some business needs, but not general-purpose chips.

After Baidu and Alibaba, Chinese tech giant Tencent is also starting to enter the chip design field.

Apple supplier Luxshare Precision recently established a chip manufacturing company in Kunshan City, Jiangsu Province in eastern China, with a registered capital of 300 million yuan ($46.4 million).

OPPO's affiliate recently added the design, development, and sale of semiconductors and their components to its business scope.

Chinese CPU designer Loongson Technology has applied for an A-share listing to fund its research and development.

The chip competes with Nvidia's next-generation 5nm GPU, which is still in the pipeline.

Baidu has recently turned its Kunlun chip business into a new, separate company and Ouyang Jian, the chief architect of the business, has become the company's CEO.

The 28nm process will be the new starting point for 100 percent locally made chips, 28nm and 14nm chips are expected to be mass-produced this year and next year respectively.

Xiaomi is now in licensing talks with IP providers and has already started recruiting a team, the report said.