The "blood" of industry is oil, and the "food" of industry is chips. But China has long imported more chips than oil. The pain of core shortage in China does not last for a day or two, nor does it last for a year or two. Since more than ten years ago, people of insight have suggested that the country attaches great importance to the chip industry and called on the country to increase investment.
However, the result of increased investment is not that the stuck problem is solved, but that it turns into a feast and carnival for capital.
In 2022, China revoked or canceled 5,746 chip-related companies, far more than in previous years, and an increase of 68% from 3,420 companies in 2021.
According to TMTpost App, in the first eight months of last year, China revoked or deregistered 3,470 chip-related companies. Now, in the four months from September to December, more than 2,300 chip companies have been suspended/cancelled in China. This means that on average, more than 15 chip companies cancel their industrial and commercial information every day.
In order to solve the stuck problem, the country has taken great pains and invested hundreds of billions to bring a spring to the semiconductor industry. I had no choice but to trust others. After these hundreds of billions, I didn’t see any splash. On the contrary, the managers of the big chip funds were all arrested.
From November 2021, Gao Songtao, the former vice president of Huaxin Investment, was suspected of being involved in insider trading of a listed chip company and was taken away for investigation. By mid-July 2022, many managers of large national chip funds were taken away for investigation. Let us It was shocking to find that the large fund established by China in order to break through the technological blockade of Europe and the United States and achieve independent research and development and independent production of chips has become a promoter of capital operations and a platform for the transfer of benefits.
The full name of the big fund is National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Co., Ltd., which was launched in 2014 by our country to solve the chip stuck problem.
The situation faced by China's chips at that time was that according to data released by the General Administration of Customs of China in January 2014, mainland China's integrated circuit imports in 2013 were US$232.2 billion, a significant increase of 34.6% over the same period last year, and the deficit reached US$144.1 billion. It expanded by $5 billion from the same period last year, marking the fourth consecutive year of expansion.
According to data from the Operation Inspection and Coordination Bureau of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology at that time, the total fixed asset investment in China's IC industry in the past six years was only about US$40 billion, while Intel's investment in 2013 alone reached US$13 billion.
Therefore, the big chip fund that is about to be launched is to use China’s ability to concentrate its efforts on big things and use large investments to solve some big problems.
In September 2014, a large fund called National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Co., Ltd. was established, consisting of China Development Bank Financial, China Tobacco, Yizhuang State Investment, China Mobile, Shanghai Guosheng, China Electronics Technology, Unisplendour Communications, Huaxin Investment, etc. Initiated by enterprises, the fund size is approximately 120 billion yuan.
The fund focuses on investing in the integrated circuit chip manufacturing industry, taking into account chip design, packaging and testing, equipment and materials and other industries, and implements market-oriented operations and professional management. As the most important industrial investment fund in the market, the trends of large funds occupy a vane position in the chip industry.
The second phase of the big fund was established in 2019, with a scale of over 200 billion.
What is the purpose of establishing a large fund? It is to support very critical, very important undertakings that cannot be completed by market entities independently. It is to prepare to invest in critical, low-efficiency, long-term undertakings. However, from the perspective of the management structure of large funds, It is coordinated by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, funded by the Ministry of Finance and China Development Bank, and supervised by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council.
At that time, someone warned that a situation that needs to be avoided is that most of this money falls into the hands of central enterprises and enterprises with state-owned assets background, while private enterprises that are truly high-tech still receive no support.
Sure enough, what they worried about happened.
Tsinghua Unigroup, which has invested huge amounts of money from big funds, actually went bankrupt?
Comparing the application areas of the US Chip Act, it is much clearer than the areas that domestic large funds focus on, so there is very little room for maneuver.
For example, the US$250 billion investment includes approximately US$52.7 billion in government subsidy funds for the US semiconductor manufacturing industry, US$24 billion worth of investment tax credits for chip factories, and more than US$170 billion authorized to the US state. Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Commerce to increase investment in scientific research and development in key areas and promote scientific research in the United States.
On the other hand, large chip funds actually allow large funds to speculate in stocks in the secondary market.
In the A-share market, big fund concept stocks have been formed. Anyone who is paid attention to by a big fund is equivalent to joining the national team. Investors also follow the trend and speculate. Big funds will rise as soon as they buy it, and fall as soon as they sell it. Solving the problem of chip stuck neck turned out to be the main force disturbing the stock market.
In the face of interests, greed cannot be controlled without relying on institutional restrictions and only relying on moral restraints.
They're not making chips, they're just making money.
After the news of the investigation of the management of these large funds was announced, the semiconductor chip industry sector, which had been falling for a long time, suddenly rose sharply collectively. Is this a coincidence or is there some degree of inevitability? Could it be that the semiconductor industry has been suffering from big funds for a long time? Are big funds a "stumbling block" to the semiconductor industry?
A reasonable explanation is that in the past, if the semiconductor industry was a result of people with big funds abusing their power, companies that could flatter or make PPTs could get more money, while companies that really worked hard could get more money because they didn’t have connections. If the money is not available, the harm to the entire industry will be great, which will cause the entire industry to act just to get quick money from the country!
So many people always clamor to overtake in corners, because this can be said to gain both fame and fortune.
Even if it is impossible to overtake on traditional chips, we can still find another way to achieve overtaking in corners through quantum chips and photonic chips.
What is overtaking on a curve? Overtaking in a corner means that you are a follower on the original track and have no chance to overtake your competitors. You find another way and achieve overtaking.
So can quantum chips be used in mobile phones or computers? Even if the theoretical calculation speed is tens of billions of times that of traditional chips, it is only theoretical. Even if you overtake a car on a curve, it means that the front of the car is overtaking. , the body is still behind.
In fact, even in quantum computing, it is not easy to surpass the United States.
Although it has not been widely publicized, the quantum computing track has been in the United States for 40 years. As early as 2016, D-wave provided a quantum computer to Google for $15 million.
In 2019, IBM launched the first independent quantum computer. Whether it is the United States or China, there are many difficulties in using quantum computing for general computing. The working environment is harsh, the volume is huge, and the cost is high. It is used to replace modern computers. It's impossible to do it with a chip.
There are also high hopes for photonic chips. According to the "Beijing Daily" report, China is preparing to build a photonic chip production line, which is expected to be completed in 2023. This means that China has led the world in photonic chips and completely changed the current chip technology. route, which made foreign media marvel at the rapid development of China's chip technology.
The report commented that the imminent commercialization of photonic chips is of great significance to the Chinese chip industry, which means that China will completely get rid of its dependence on foreign chips, and is even expected to lead the development of global chip technology.
But is this possible? Photonic chips and electronic chips are two different things. They have nothing to do with the current stuck neck. They cannot replace the stuck traditional chips at all.
Even if the speed of photonic chips is increased by 1,000 times and the power consumption is reduced by 1,000 times, they will only be used as communication modules in data centers, and the core computing units will not be used at all. Is this enough to overtake?
Nowadays, the United States' suppression of China's chip industry has increasingly no bottom line. The reality is that whether it is the chip design side of the electronic design automation (EDA) software giants Synopsys, Cadence and Siemens EDA, the mobile phone processor core architecture ARM, or equipment manufacturing With advanced ASML EUV lithography machines and TSMC's 3nm advanced process technology, China's chip industry still needs to rely on the technology and product supply of overseas companies.
Liu Yadong, editor-in-chief of Science and Technology Daily, once said in a speech that in more cases, "overtaking on corners" is a false proposition and often becomes synonymous with opportunism.
If you overtake in a curve and go in a straight line, it means that others are taking a curve and they are stupider than you. Is this possible? Many practices have proven that overtaking on curves does not work.
In his view, impetuosity and exaggeration are epidemics in China’s scientific and technological circles, and they have been going on for at least 20 years. Many of our scientific and technological workers cannot bear the loneliness and cannot sit on the bench. They always want to take shortcuts and overtake in corners.
He said that there are some people in our country who sometimes talk about the four new and four great inventions, and sometimes talk about "comprehensive catching up and subjective transcendence". They say that China's current economic strength, scientific and technological strength, and comprehensive national strength have all surpassed each other. The United States has become the number one in the world, but there are still parts and pieces to it, a nose and an eye. It is obvious that it built a house on someone else's foundation, and it cannot be said that it has complete and permanent property rights.
If it's just to boost morale, that's it. The trouble is that these people who make these arguments often deceive their leaders, deceive the public, and even deceive themselves.
These provide grounds for the international China threat theory. Those who exaggerate China's construction achievements, no matter what their motivations, are harmful to no one. The result is to harm the country and the people.
Only by recognizing the gap can we make up for it, otherwise our Chinese dream will always be the Chinese dream.
As Ren Zhengfei said, spending money on chips won't work. You have to spend money on mathematicians, physicists, and chemists. China must work hard to change mathematics, physics, chemistry, neurology, and brain science in all aspects. Only then can we Maybe you can stand up in this world.
But how many people are still studying seriously? What hope can it give those who study seriously?
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