“The major geopolitical significance has been to show that it is possible to completely design [without] U.S. technology and still produce a product that may not be quite as good as cutting edge Western models, but is still quite capable.” Miller says a considerable gap remains between SMIC’s capabilities and those of TSMC, the industry leader that produces the newest chips for companies like Apple.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
“The major geopolitical significance,” he said, “has been to show that it is possible to completely design [without] U.S. technology and still produce a product that may not be quite as good as cutting edge Western models, but is still quite capable.”
China’s official broadcaster, CGTN, in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, called the phone Huawei’s “first higher-end processor” since U.S. sanctions were imposed and said the chip it contains was made by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., a company partially owned by the Chinese government.
U.S. sanctions were intended to slow China’s progress in emerging fields like artificial intelligence and big data by cutting off its ability to buy or build advanced semiconductors, which are the brains of these systems.
“This shows that Chinese companies like Huawei still have plenty of capability to innovate,” said Chris Miller, a professor at Tufts University and author of the book “Chip War.” “I think it will also probably intensify debate in Washington on whether restrictions are to be tightened.”
Willy Shih, an economist at Harvard Business School, said Huawei’s breakthrough was evocative of what happened with Global Positioning System technology, now commonly known as GPS.
For instance, Intel recently announced it will have to pay $353 million in termination fees to Israel’s Tower Semiconductor after failing to acquire Chinese regulatory approval for the acquisition.
The original article contains 1,523 words, the summary contains 224 words. Saved 85%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Wasn’t it inevitable though, if so?
Western companies have been essentially training the Chinese for a few decades now, so yes, it basically has been inevitable.
Semiconductor manufacturing is a hell of a nut to crack. There was always a risk that China would eventually crack it, but I don’t think anyone expected it to happen within a year of the ban.
I worry about Taiwan.
One of the things that deters the nationalist hawks in the Chinese government is that they (and the world economy) depend on a functioning Taiwanese chip industry…It sure is a juicy goose if you are China, I’m sure.
This is the phone that was built with stockpiled chips from before the export ban. It’s a non story trust has been popping up inexplicably.
