BEIJING: China&#39;s push to develop top-end artificial intelligence microchips is gaining momentum, but analysts say it will struggle to match the technical might of US powerhouse Nvidia within the current decade.&nbsp;Ramping up its chip industry is a way for Beijing to beat restrictions imposed by Washington on exports of the most advanced chips &mdash; used to power AI systems &mdash; to China.&nbsp;The United States cites national security concerns, such as the risk of giving China a military advantage, as the reason for the block, a geopolitical bind that shows no sign of easing.&nbsp;&quot;China wants chips that policy cannot take away,&quot; said Stephen Wu, a former AI software engineer and founder of the Carthage Capital investment fund.&nbsp;However, &quot;full end-to-end parity with Nvidia&#39;s best chips, memory packaging, networking and software is not guaranteed&quot; by 2030 or even beyond, Wu told AFP.&nbsp;Announcements by Chinese companies of computing upgrades and reports of plans to dramatically increase the output of advanced semiconductors have driven up chip-related shares in the country.&nbsp;But to catch up with Nvidia, China needs to make fast progress on high-bandwidth memory and packaging &mdash; &quot;the hardest and most complex parts of the chip,&quot; Wu said.&nbsp;Other challenges include building the right software to harness the chips&#39; power and upgrading manufacturing tools.&nbsp;&quot;These chips are extremely advanced and tiny, so imagine carving a stone sculpture with a hammer instead of a chisel,&quot; Wu said.&nbsp;&#39;Only way&#39; to succeed&nbsp;&quot;The industry consensus is China at least needs five to ten years to catch up,&quot; said George Chen of The Asia Group, a view reflected by Dilin Wu, research strategist at Pepperstone.&nbsp;&quot;The future is bright, but not yet,&quot; she told AFP.&nbsp;&quot;It&#39;s maybe a 2030 story&quot; as &quot;significant gaps remain in terms of performance, and also in terms of energy efficiency and ecosystem maturity.&quot;&nbsp;Public demand for AI services is booming in China, and while government support for new chips is &quot;substantial,&quot; the investment required is &quot;immense,&quot; she added.&nbsp;Shares in Alibaba, the e-commerce titan ploughing billions of dollars into AI tech, have more than doubled since January.&nbsp;And Chinese chip industry leader Huawei will reportedly double the output of its top Ascend 910C chip in the next year.&nbsp;The hype has also sharply driven up stocks in the smaller chipmaker Cambricon, sometimes dubbed &quot;China&#39;s Nvidia.&quot;&nbsp;&quot;I think this rally can be sustained,&quot; partly because it is driven by Chinese government policy, Pepperstone&#39;s Wu said.&nbsp;Even Xiaomi, whose 2014 venture into chip design was a confessed flop, is turning back to semiconductors.&nbsp;&quot;Chips are the only way for Xiaomi to succeed,&quot; the company&#39;s CEO Lei Jun said in Beijing last month, referring to the production of high-end smartphone chips.&nbsp;&#39;Best in China&#39;China, the world&#39;s biggest consumer of semiconductors, is a huge market for California-based Nvidia.&nbsp;Nvidia chips are still &quot;the best ... to train large language models,&quot; the systems behind generative AI, said Chen Cheng, general manager for AI translation software at tech firm iFLYTEK.&nbsp;Faced with US restrictions, &quot;we overcame that difficulty&quot; by shifting to Chinese-made tech, she said in a group interview.&nbsp;&quot;Now our model is trained on Huawei chips&quot; -- currently the best in China, Cheng said.&nbsp;Meanwhile, Nvidia, the world&#39;s largest company by market capitalization, is under pressure from both sides.&nbsp;The Financial Times reported last month that Beijing had barred major Chinese firms from purchasing a state-of-the-art Nvidia processor, which was explicitly designed for the country.&nbsp;The company must now pay the US government 15 percent of its revenue from certain AI chip sales in China.&nbsp;Nvidia boss Jensen Huang has warned that restrictions on exporting his most cutting-edge semiconductors to China will only fuel the country&#39;s rise.&nbsp;&quot;They&#39;re nanoseconds behind us,&quot; the leather jacket-clad Huang said on a tech business podcast.&nbsp;&quot;So, we&#39;ve got to go compete.&quot;

Gadgets

The United States cites national security concerns, such as the risk of giving China a military advantage, as the reason for the block, a geopolitical bind that shows no sign of easing.

China's chip challenge: The race to match US tech

BEIJING: The leader of a US congressional delegation to China warned Tuesday of the &quot;risk of a misunderstanding&quot; between the two countries&#39; militaries as advances in defense technology move at breakneck speed.&nbsp;Adam Smith, the most senior Democrat on Washington&#39;s Armed Services Committee, told journalists in Beijing that China needs to talk more about its military with other global powers &quot;for basic de-confliction.&quot;&nbsp;&quot;We&#39;ve seen this with our ships, our planes, their ships, their planes coming entirely too close to one another,&quot; he said at a news conference at the US Embassy.&nbsp;&quot;We need to have a better conversation about de-conflicting those things.&quot;&nbsp;The four-person delegation also includes other members of the same Armed Services Committee -- Democrats Ro Khanna and Chrissy Houlahan -- as well as Republican congressman Michael Baumgartner, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.&nbsp;The group on Monday met Chinese Defence Minister Dong Jun, with whom they talked about the importance of &quot;working through our differences&quot; and more candid dialogue, according to a statement from the US side.&nbsp;Dong called on the visitors to &quot;remove disruptive and restrictive factors&quot; between them, China&#39;s Xinhua state news agency reported.&nbsp;Speaking on Tuesday alongside the other lawmakers and the US Ambassador to China, David Perdue, Smith said: &quot;AI and drone warfare and cyber and space are moving so rapidly, and innovation is happening so quickly.&nbsp;&quot;The risk of a misunderstanding of capabilities on one side or the other is great,&quot; he said, adding the two sides need to talk so they &quot;don&#39;t stumble in any sort of conflicts.&quot;&nbsp;Tariffs and TikTokThe bipartisan congressional delegation comes just days after Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump spoke by telephone for the second time since the return to the White House of Trump, who has tried to keep a lid on tensions despite his once virulent criticism of China.&nbsp;Trump said he would meet Xi on the sidelines of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea starting at the end of next month and that he would travel to China next year.&nbsp;He said Xi would also visit the United States at an unspecified time and that the two leaders would speak again by telephone.&nbsp;Both sides dramatically hiked tariffs against each other during a months-long dispute earlier this year, disrupting global supply chains.&nbsp;Washington and Beijing then reached a deal to reduce levies, with the United States imposing 30 percent duties on imports of Chinese goods and China hitting US products with a 10 percent tariff. The deal expires in November.&nbsp;Smith&#39;s group on Monday held talks with Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, in which they discussed the ongoing trade talks and the hot-button issues of fentanyl, critical minerals and the future of TikTok.&nbsp;The White House has said a US version of TikTok would feature a homegrown model of the app&#39;s prized algorithm, potentially clearing one of the main obstacles to keeping the Chinese-owned platform online in the United States.&nbsp;Asked about the TikTok issue, Smith said: &quot;My understanding is that I don&#39;t think that has been 100 percent resolved.&quot;&nbsp;The delegation will also meet China&#39;s National People&#39;s Congress Chairman Zhao Leji and Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Boeing dealAmong other things, the US delegation also sought a commitment from China to buy more Boeing jets.&nbsp;The leading global US aerospace company is in talks to sell as many as 500 jets to China, Bloomberg reported last month. That would represent a major breakthrough for the company in the world&#39;s second-largest aviation market, where orders have stalled amid US-China trade tensions.&nbsp;&quot;It&#39;s been a while since Boeing airplanes have been sold here in China. We&#39;d like to get that deal done,&quot; said Smith, who is leading the bipartisan delegation, when asked about the deal. &quot;It&#39;s a good company, good product, hope you get back to selling airplanes in China.&quot;&nbsp;Boeing is one of the largest US exporters and historically sent around a quarter of its planes to China, though it has not secured a major Chinese purchase since Trump&#39;s first term in office.&nbsp;Purdue said he had visited Boeing&#39;s plant in Tianjin last week, a city 150 km (95 miles) southeast of the Chinese capital.

US China relations, US China trade talks, US tarifss

Americas

Adam Smith, the most senior Democrat on Washington's Armed Services Committee, says that China needs to talk more about its military with other global powers "for basic de-confliction."

Articles tagged with "US China military"

China's chip challenge: The race to match US tech

US lawmaker warns of military 'misunderstanding' risk with China

China's chip challenge: The race to match US tech