The United States has long dominated the semiconductor market, putting China under pressure with trade restrictions on companies such as Huawei and Xiaomi. In just a few years, however, Beijing has made a spectacular comeback.
The embargo that triggered the offensive
Since 2019, the sanctions imposed by Washington on Chinese tech giants have prohibited Huawei, among others, from accessing advanced components from American companies such as Qualcomm or Intel. The aim: to curb China’s technological expansion and preserve its strategic lead in semiconductors.
But far from paralysing the sector, these restrictions have accelerated China’s investment in its electronics industry. The government has injected billions of yuan into research, training and, above all, the local manufacture of chips, even if they are technically less advanced than the 3 or 5 nanometre chips produced in Taiwan or Korea.
Huawei and Xiaomi: the bridgeheads
Huawei’s return with its in-house Kirin 9000S processor – integrated into the Mate 60 Pro – has caused surprise, even concern, in Washington. This system-on-a-chip, from SMIC factories, is tangible proof that China can produce advanced chips locally, despite embargoes. Xiaomi followed suit with the development of its own semiconductors, notably for cameras and energy management.
Even if these chips do not yet fully rival the latest generations from Qualcomm or Apple, they mark a strategic turning point: the end of China’s total dependence on foreign technologies. The industry is also reorganizing around national standards and alternative architectures such as RISC-V, which are open and less subject to Western control than ARM or x86 architectures.
This catch-up is based on an all-out development strategy: creation of research institutes, massive funding for local foundries like SMIC, support for etching machine manufacturers, and even encouragement for reverse engineering. Beijing assumes that innovation can be achieved through imitation, then improvement.
Growing concern on the American side
Faced with this dynamic, the United States fears losing its competitive edge. Some reports are already raising the possibility that, within a decade, China will be able to produce its own high-end chips without any dependence on foreign suppliers. A prospect that would upset the global technological balance.
China may not yet have won the semiconductor war, but it has demonstrated that an embargo, far from holding it back, can become an engine of innovation. Huawei and Xiaomi are the visible faces of a national strategy of technological reconquest. And this time, the United States knows that the counterattack is real.
