The growth of China’s fixed-asset investment (FAI) and retail sales has remained slow so far this year as falling home prices continue to suppress property investment and people’s spending.  The country’s FAI increased 3.6% to 28.7 trillion yuan (US$4 trillion) in the first seven months of this year from a year ago, according to the […]

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China has seen an outflow of foreign investment at home and an increase in its own external investment so far this year during its trade war against the United States and Europe. China’s direct investment liabilities, an indicator of incoming foreign investment, fell by US$14.8 billion in the second quarter of this year, according to […]

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Chinese technology firms started stockpiling Samsung’s high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips earlier this year in anticipation that the United States would soon ban their export to China.

China accounted for about 30% of Samsung’s HBM chip revenues in the first half of this year, driven by rising demand from tech giants like Huawei and Baidu as well as new Chinese startups, Reuters reported, citing three unnamed sources. HBM chips are commonly used as artificial intelligence (AI) accelerators.

The Reuters report said most Chinese firms have sought in particular the HBM2E chip, which is one generation behind the HBM3 and two generations behind the most advanced HBM3E. China plans to produce indigenously the HBM2, the most mature, least advanced model.

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A Chinese computer server supplier that was set up four and a half years ago to circumvent US sanctions has been accused of selling products to sanctioned Chinese firms. Nettrix, a Beijing-based firm established in December 2019, has sold computer servers that used Intel and Nvidia’s chips and Microsoft’s software to sanctioned Chinese companies and […]

The post Sugon spin-off helps China evade US chip bans appeared first on Asia Times.

The United States plans to expand a Cold War-era rule to stop China from obtaining restricted chip-making tools and high-end chips from places including Israel, Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan. The Biden administration is set to expand the coverage of its Foreign Direct Product Rule (FDPR), which was first introduced in 1959 to control the trading […]

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Some American legislators have proposed a bipartisan legislative bill that will require United States-listed firms to disclose their assets and businesses in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and estimate the economic losses they will suffer if China invades Taiwan.  The PRC Risk Transparency Act, if passed and implemented, will amend the Securities Exchange Act […]

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The Netherlands will lose top semiconductor industry talent if the country maintains probing national security checks on Chinese students enrolled at its universities, Chinese state-run media reports and nationalistic commentators have asserted in the latest tech war tit-for-tat.  The Chinese comments came after Robert-Jan Smits, president of the Netherlands’ Eindhoven University of Technology, told Bloomberg […]

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United States officials, lawmakers and non-profit organizations have called for sanctioning Hong Kong firms and banks after NATO on July 11 condemned Beijing’s support of the Russian defense sector.  US Secretary of State Antony Blinken plans to make a complaint, during a meeting in Laos with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, over Russian shipments. He […]

The post US targets Hong Kong chip transshipments to Russia   appeared first on Asia Times.

Nvidia, the world’s largest company by value, is reportedly developing a new artificial intelligence (AI) chip based on its flagship product B200 for the China market. The mass production of the new chip, which may be called B20, will commence later this year while shipments will start in the second quarter of next year, Reuters […]

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China has vowed to take necessary measures to safeguard its rights after American officials said the United States may sanction Chinese banks for facilitating transactions related to shipments to the Russian defense sector.  The US is preparing a new round of sanctions against Chinese entities that supplied dual-use items to Russia’s war machine in Ukraine, […]

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The 20th Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee’s third plenary session concluded on Thursday (July 18) with the adoption of a five-year plan that aims to upgrade Chinese industries and push forward economic reforms.  About 200 CCP Central Committee members adopted the “Resolution on Further Deepening Reform Comprehensively to Advance Chinese Modernization” during the four-day […]

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Chinese firms still have access to Nvidia Inc’s high-end artificial intelligence (AI) chips by using cloud servers operated by Google and Microsoft despite the United States’ chip export ban.  Microsoft permits its customers in China to use Azure cloud servers based outside of mainland China, The Information reported on Wednesday, citing an employee of the […]

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The European Union (EU) remains an attractive market for China’s automakers even after the bloc imposed 17-38% tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles (EVs) earlier this month, said a Hong Kong-based prominent academic. “The competition of the Chinese EV market is quite fierce as local automakers are cutting prices,” Fan Di, an assistant professor at the […]

The post China EVs still driving for EU’s protected markets appeared first on Asia Times.

The United States has imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum products originating from China via Mexico, closing a loophole that had allowed Chinese metal suppliers to evade US tariffs since 2018. Steel products from Mexico will face a 25% tariff, unless they are melted and poured in Mexico, Canada or the US, according to the […]

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China has launched a set of new rules to improve the traceability in its rare earth sector to ensure that sanctioned American firms can’t gain access to the nation’s precious metals. The State Council recently unveiled a set of new regulations, set to take effect on October 1, to regulate the country’s rare earth industry. […]

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The European Union is preparing two surveys aimed at checking how China’s growing production capacity of older-generation semiconductors is affecting the bloc.  The European Commission will conduct two surveys covering major chip-consuming industrial firms and the chip industry, respectively, in September, Reuters reported on Saturday (July 6).  The report, citing two unnamed sources, said the […]

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The United States sanctioned four companies in Hong Kong, South Africa and the United Kingdom and accused them of using Western and NATO sources to train Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircrew in South Africa.  The sanctioned firms include Global Training Solutions Limited and Smartech Future Limited in Hong Kong, Grace Air (Pty) Ltd in […]

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Beijing’s strategy to boost trade relations with countries in the Global South to diversify away from closing Western markets has taken a hit with Indonesia’s announced intention to impose a 100-200% tariff on China’s labor-intensive goods. Over the past few days, several Indonesian officials have said that the world’s fourth most populous nation is drafting […]

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Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC), the world’s third largest chip-foundry after Taiwan’s TSMC and South Korea’s Samsung, is reportedly struggling to increase the production yield of an artificial intelligence (AI) chip for Huawei Technologies. 

Since last year, SMIC has been making Huawei’s Ascend 910B, a 7 nanometer chip which is said to be equivalent to 80% of Nvidia’s A100 in terms of AI-training efficiency. Chinese media reports said earlier this year that Huawei could make about 400,000 to 500,000 units of Ascend 910B in 2024.

On June 25 The Information, a San Francisco-based technology news website, reported that Huawei has faced obstacles in the manufacturing of Ascend 910B chip since officials of the United States Department of Commerce urged chip-making equipment makers and suppliers to stop shipping products to SMIC.

The post Low yield for SMIC-Huawei Nvidia knockoff? So what? appeared first on Asia Times.

The Chinese government is expected to unveil tax and fiscal reforms next month that will allow local governments to explore new tax sources to offset their losses in land sales revenue.  The reforms will be announced during or after the Chinese Communist Party’s third plenary session of the current Central Committee’s 2022-2027 term. The Third […]

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