China’s chip industry is growing faster than anywhere else in the world, after U.S. sanctions on local champions from Huawei Technologies to Hikvision spurred appetite for home-grown components.
Nineteen of the world’s 20 fastest-growing chip industry firms over the past four quarters, on average, hail from the world’s No. 2 economy, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That compared with just eight at the same point last year. Those China-based suppliers of design software, processors and gear vital to chipmaking are expanding revenue at several times the likes of global leaders Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. or ASML Holding NV.
That supercharged growth underscores how tensions between Washington and Beijing are transforming the global $550 billion semiconductor industry — a sector that plays an outsized role in everything from defense to the advent of future technologies like AI and autonomous cars. In 2020, the U.S. began restricting sales of American technology to companies like Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. and Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co., successfully containing their growth — but also fueling a boom in Chinese chipmaking and supply.
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