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Samsung Overtakes Intel as Global Chip Leader

Well-known Chinese news site Sohu (NASDAQ: SOHU) recently reported that the U.S. research firm Gartner just revealed data showing that, in 2021, Samsung Electronics’ semiconductor revenue increased by 31.6 percent to US$75.9 billion, surpassing Intel to become the world’s highest-revenue chipmaker. The second-ranked Intel’s semiconductor revenue was $73.1 billion last year, with an increase of only 0.5 percent. It was the slowest sales growth among the top 25 chip manufacturers. Intel’s competitor AMD, in the server processor segment, market share has soared from 14th to 10th. However, Gartner’s ranking does not include foundry companies such as TSMC. It is worth mentioning that, in order to consolidate its position as the world’s number one, Samsung intends to return to China to seize more market share. Recently, it has established a new team called the “China Market Innovation Group,” which directly reports to the co-CEO. In 2018, 60 percent of Samsung’s chip revenue came from the Chinese market. Each year in China, it has easily earned RMB 300 billion (around US$47.3 billion) a year. It is fair to say that Samsung becoming the chip king in that year definitely had help from the Chinese market. In 2021, the global semiconductor industry sales surged 25.1 percent to $583.5 billion. This is the first time the industry exceeded the $500 billion revenue mark. As chip demand continues to surge, chipmakers such as Intel and Micron have expressed the belief that the global semiconductor boom will continue into 2025.

Source: Sohu, January 20, 2022
https://www.sohu.com/a/517898283_334198

Briefings | | |   Geo-Strategic Trend Information/Technology

Global Times: Japanese Media Complained about Chinese EV Dumping

Global Times recently reported that Japanese media have been covering how Chinese electric vehicles are gaining momentum in Japan, entering the Japanese public transportation and logistics industry with a “crushing price advantage.” They claim that the momentum has the potential to lead to China’s deeply mining Japan’s information. The Japanese people should not be careless. The media urged the Japanese government to respond. At the end of last year, there was a “shocking” news report that four electric buses made by China’s BYD began to operate on the Keihan bus line in Kyoto city. Japan-made electric buses cost JPY 70 million each, while China-made buses cost JPY 19.5 million. BYD plans to sell 4,000 electric buses to Japan by 2030. Japanese media also indicated that electric vehicles made in China are also making their way into the Japanese logistics industry. For example, leading logistics company “Sagawa Express” plans to introduce 7,200 Chinese electric vehicles. And SBS Holdings, the parent company of “same-day delivery,” also plans to replace 2,000 current vehicles with Chinese electric trucks. Even with Japanese government subsidies, Nissan and Mitsubishi’s EVs are priced much higher. Japanese media speculated that the strong momentum of China’s electric vehicles is due to the large subsidies from the Chinese government. They also urge the Japanese government to follow China’s example and introduce laws to prohibit the transfer of EV driving data abroad.

Source: Global Times, January 21, 2022
https://world.huanqiu.com/article/46UdoIgp1Zp

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AI Finance Hosts Broadcast for 70 Days without Anyone Knowing Host Was Not Real

National Business Daily has several daily TV programs reporting on financial news. One of them is “N Xiao Hei Financial News” with a male host and another one is “N Xiao Bai Mutual Funds” with a female host.

Xiaoice, an Artificial Intelligence (AI) system developed by Microsoft Software Technology Center, announced on December 20, 2021, that it had broadcast those two programs with AI virtual hosts for 70 days. Until the announcement, the general public didn’t realize those hosts were not real persons. Apparently the technology was able to make the AI persons appear close enough to their original human hosts. Also the whole content editing was a streamline of full automation, without human involvement. That way, National Business Daily could broadcast AI TV programs 24/7.

Source: Phoenix, December 20, 2021
https://tech.ifeng.com/c/8C7ltJX9sCF

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Xi’An’s Pandemic Lockdown Impacted Global Chip Supply

Well-known Chinese news site Sohu (NASDAQ: SOHU) recently reported that globalization demonstrated its power when a critical supply chain like the one for chip supply got impacted by lockdown policies in the Chinese city of Xi’An. Samsung issued an announcement on December 29 that its Xi’An manufacturing factories’ schedule had to be adjusted for the protection of the health of the employees due to the breakout of Covid in the city. Samsung has two large scale 3D NAND factories in Xi’An, which hold 42.3 percent of Samsung’s capacity, or 15.3 percent of the global supply. Samsung warned about the significant reduction of its output and stopped offering NAND quotes. Samsung is the world’s largest NAND Flash provider with a global market share of 34 percent. At the same time, Xi’An also has Micron’s DRAM memory packaging and testing plant. Micron is the world’s third largest DRAM chip manufacturer. The company said the factory is seeing manufacturing delays due to a lack of labor; as a result, new supply arrangements may be delayed accordingly. The Micron factory is currently running at 40 to 50 percent of its capacity. All these will cause the global short-term supply of storage semiconductors to face uncertainty.

Source: Sohu, December 30, 2021
https://www.sohu.com/a/513328179_351305

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Xinhua: The U.S. Pushes 6G Alliance; Excludes China

Xinhua recently reported that, last year, the United States wooed its allies into establishing a 6G “small circle” alliance , excluding China. This year, the U.S. has been strengthening the cooperation among allies in a variety of new ways. The alliance’s key tasks mainly include the establishment of a 6G strategic roadmap, the promotion of 6G related policies and budgets, and the global promotion of 6G technologies and services. At present, dozens of global information and communication industry giants such as Qualcomm, Apple, Samsung, and Nokia have joined the club, but leading Chinese 5G companies Huawei and ZTE have been excluded. Chinese scholars expressed the belief that it is understandable, since the purpose of the Alliance is to fix the leadership position of the United States in the upcoming 6G era. Ever since the founding of the Alliance, the U.S. has continuously strengthened its technical cooperation on a government level in the 6G field with Europe, Japan, South Korea, and other countries. This is the latest attempt to “overtake” in the 6G field and regain the global dominance in the communications industry, and to contain China. For example, in April, The U.S. and Japan announced a joint US$4.5 billion for 6G development. In June, South Korea announced a Korea-U.S. joint research program with US$188 million in funding. Samsung U.S. Research Center already received FCC approval of 6G bands. 6G technology is expected to have several to several hundred times better performance than 5G. It includes multiple delivery channels and includes satellite connectivity. The U.S. Alliance and its exclusion of China will inevitably lead to a division in global 6G technical standards.

Source: Xinhua, December 8, 2021
http://www.news.cn/mrdx/2021-12/10/c_1310363619.htm

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology US-China Relations

Xinhua: China-Arab Beidou Satellite Navigation Cooperation Forum Took Place

Xinhua recently reported that the Third China-Arab Beidou Satellite Navigation Cooperation Forum was held in Beijing on December 9. China and the Arab Information and Communication Technologies Organization (AICTO) agreed jointly to implement no less than five projects in key areas on an application scale in the next two years and would do so by utilizing the Chinese satellite navigation system – Beidou/GNSS. The two parties will jointly promote the deployment of one to two Beidou/GNSS centers in interested Arab countries. In recent years, Beidou has been utilized widely in Tunisia, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Lebanon, Oman, Morocco and the UAE to provide a variety of services such as real-time accurate positioning, land surveying and mapping, transportation, precision agriculture, environmental monitoring, security, and railway construction. This Forum marked the beginning of a new era for Beidou’s large-scale application deployments characterized as marketization, industrialization, and internationalization.

Source: Xinhua, December 9, 2021
http://www.news.cn/mil/2021-12/09/c_1211480286.htm

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China Youth Daily: Tencent Apps Found Violating End User Rights

China Youth Daily recently reported that, in a recent government compliance inspection movement on app infringement of users’ rights and interests, nine products of Tencent had not been rectified as required. Tencent had been warned publicly four times. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has required that all new apps and updates to existing apps must pass government technical inspections before they can be released. Tencent responded to the news report, stating that the company is continuing to update its apps, to protect users’ rights, to cooperate with the regulatory authorities and to conduct normal compliance inspections. Currently Chinese mobile app users have felt strongly that many apps violate the rules of handling users’ personal information. They set up configuration barriers, harass users, and mislead users, among other violations. So far 2.44 million apps have been inspected. Of those, 2,049 apps that violated regulations were notified, and 540 apps that refused to be updated were removed from the app stores. In today’s Chinese app market, new issues such as microphone eavesdropping, communication theft, and unauthorized reading and writing of albums, are frequently exposed. There have been reports on some businesses, such as banks, that have asked employees to pause the use of popular Tencent apps such as WeChat.

Source: China Youth Daily, November 27, 2021
http://news.cyol.com/gb/articles/2021-11/26/content_OMpnOhW5M.html

Briefings | | |   Information/Technology

China’s “Whitelist” to Limit Key Industries Only to Chinese Companies

Bloomberg reported on November 16 that, in 2016, Beijing established the Information Technology Application and Innovation Working Committee (ITAIWC)  and has been using it to build a “Whitelist” so that entry into certain key industries is limited to “Chinese companies only.” China rejected the report on November 18.

Epoch Times provided some details about the ITAIWC’s actions in the past. In January, the Chinese Institute of Electronics, an institution directly under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, released the “White Paper on the Development of China’s Information Technology Applications and Innovations Industry (2021) (the White Paper).” This is the first White Paper that the CIE and 16 enterprises and organizations have created in this field.

The White Paper said the Chinese government has included Information Technology Innovation into its national strategy and stated that, regarding the “2+8” model, the “2” stands for leadership by the party and the government, and the “8” stands for the eight big industries including finance, electricity, telecom, petroleum, transportation, education, medical treatment, and space.

The “Code of Work” of the ITAIWC sets the basic requirements for companies to apply to join its organization. The requirements are that the companies must be officially approved domestic enterprises and institutions engaged in research and development, production and manufacturing in the field of information technology application and innovation; the controlling shareholder of the enterprise must be a Chinese legal person or a Chinese natural person with a Chinese national as the legal person and less than 25 percent of the capital can be foreign capital.

The ITAIWC Technical Advisory Committee was formed in Beijing in March of this year. More than fifty people attended the meeting, including Major General Liao Xiangke, Dean of the School of Computer Science, the People’s Liberation Army’s University of National Defense Science and Technology, and Major General Wu Jiangxing, the Chairman of the China Network Information Technology Military-Civilian Integration Alliance. An official from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology delivered a speech at the meeting.

Source: Epoch Times, November 21, 2021
https://www.epochtimes.com/gb/21/11/21/n13389371.htm

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