Tech war: US-sanctioned chip maker Jingjia Micro to develop GPUs in Wuxi in latest sign of China’s self-sufficiency push
- The Wuxi High-Tech District, which will host the project, did not disclose the size of the investment, but said annual output would reach 5 billion yuan (US$699 million)
- Jingjia was added to the US Entity List in December 2021, denying it access to US technologies, including chip design software, without Washington’s approval
Chinese chip maker Jingjia Microelectronics, which is under US sanctions, is planning to develop graphic processing units (GPUs) in the eastern city of Wuxi, in the latest sign of China’s efforts to achieve self-sufficiency in semiconductors despite Washington’s restrictions.
According to a statement issued by the Wuxi High-Tech District, which will host the project, an initial agreement was reached between the Shenzhen-listed company and the district. While the detailed investment size was not disclosed, the project is expected to generate 5 billion yuan (US$699 million) worth of output per year, according to the statement published on Sunday. The company earlier this year said it would raise 4.2 billion yuan in private placement for GPU research and development.
Sunday’s statement did not elaborate on the production aspects of the project. Washington, as well as allies Japan and the Netherlands, recently tightened their export rules to limit China’s access to the advanced chip making tools needed to manufacture processors including GPUs, a type of chip vital for artificial intelligence training.
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Jingjia Micro claims to be China’s leading developer of GPUs, although it lags far behind global peers such as Nvidia, the world’s leading supplier of GPUs. The Chinese company’s revenue in 2022 was only 1.2 billion yuan, or US$168 million, a fraction of Nvidia’s US$27 billion annual revenue.
Based in Changsha, Hunan province, Jingjia was added to the US Entity List in December 2021, denying it access to US technologies, including chip design software, without Washington’s approval. At the time, Jingjia said its addition to the blacklist would not have a material impact on its operations.
Three months before its inclusion on the US trade blacklist, the company was flagged as a company connected with the Chinese military-industrial complex by the US Treasury Department, which barred US investors from buying its shares, bonds or any derivatives based on its securities.
Jingjia Micro’s plan to tap into China’s semiconductor supply chain to produce GPUs highlights the country’s predicament in the aftermath of stringent US export controls targeting China’s chip sector. The new US rules, rolled out in October 2022, prevent China-based chip makers from advancing to nodes below 10-nanometre, which are increasingly required to power consumer gadgets and digital infrastructure.
Last year Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, which makes GPUs for Nvidia, reportedly suspended production of the BR100 GPU designed by Chinese start-up Biren Technology, after Washington updated its export controls.
During the signing ceremony, Jingjia Micro’s chairman and president Zeng Wanhui told Wuxi vice governor Zhou Wendong that the company will leverage Wuxi’s strengths in the chip sector to “fully integrate the advantageous resources”, hoping for “early fruition” of the project in both “production and economic profits”, according to the statement.
Jiangjia Micro claims it owns intellectual property rights to high-performance GPUs used in applications from signal processing and storage to small-sized radar, according to information on its website.
