US memory chipmaker Micron yesterday said it was committed to China and would invest 4.3 billion yuan (US$600 million) over the next few years in its chip packaging facility in the Chinese city of Xian.
The company has been targeted by China’s cyberspace regulator, which last month said the firm, the US’ biggest memory chipmaker, had failed a network security review and that the regulator would block operators of key infrastructure from buying from the company.
Micron made no mention of the review’s decision in yesterday’s statement, posted on WeChat.
“This investment project demonstrates Micron’s unwavering commitment to its China business and team,” it quoted CEO Sanjay Mehrotra as saying.
The investment would include buying packaging equipment from a Xian-based subsidiary of Taiwan’s Powertech Technology Inc (力成科技), which Micron has been using in the factory since 2016, the company said.
Micron will also open a new production line at the site to manufacture mobile DRAM, NAND and SSD products to improve the plant’s packaging and testing capabilities.
Powertech said in a separate statement that the plan for Micron to buy the equipment was part of the 2016 agreement between the firms, so the financial impact on Powertech would be limited.
Micron, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce and the Cyberspace Administration of China did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Micron did not disclose the value of the deal, but said it would offer contracts to 1,200 employees of Powertech’s Xian subsidiary and that the investment would create an additional 500 jobs.
This would bring Micron’s workforce in China to more than 4,500 people, the company added.
Micron last month forecast a hit to revenue in the low-single to high-single-digit percentages after the China ban.
A Reuters review of more than 100 public government tenders found that Chinese authorities were scaling back purchases of Micron’s chips before the ban.
Additional reporting by Lisa Wang
Semiconductor business between Taiwan and the US is a “win-win” model for both sides given the high level of complementarity, the government said yesterday responding to tariff threats from US President Donald Trump. Home to the world’s largest contract chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), Taiwan is a key link in the global technology supply chain for companies such as Apple Inc and Nvidia Corp. Trump said on Monday he plans to impose tariffs on imported chips, pharmaceuticals and steel in an effort to get the producers to make them in the US. “Taiwan and the US semiconductor and other technology industries
SMALL AND EFFICIENT: The Chinese AI app’s initial success has spurred worries in the US that its tech giants’ massive AI spending needs re-evaluation, a market strategist said Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek’s (深度求索) eponymous AI assistant rocketed to the top of Apple Inc’s iPhone download charts, stirring doubts in Silicon Valley about the strength of the US’ technological dominance. The app’s underlying AI model is widely seen as competitive with OpenAI and Meta Platforms Inc’s latest. Its claim that it cost much less to train and develop triggered share moves across Asia’s supply chain. Chinese tech firms linked to DeepSeek, such as Iflytek Co (科大訊飛), surged yesterday, while chipmaking tool makers like Advantest Corp slumped on the potential threat to demand for Nvidia Corp’s AI accelerators. US stock
SUBSIDIES: The nominee for commerce secretary indicated the Trump administration wants to put its stamp on the plan, but not unravel it entirely US President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the agency in charge of a US$52 billion semiconductor subsidy program declined to give it unqualified support, raising questions about the disbursement of funds to companies like Intel Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電). “I can’t say that I can honor something I haven’t read,” Howard Lutnick, Trump’s nominee for commerce secretary, said of the binding CHIPS and Science Act awards in a confirmation hearing on Wednesday. “To the extent monies have been disbursed, I would commit to rigorously enforcing documents that have been signed by those companies to make sure we get
UNUSUAL TIMING: The success of DeepSeek has prompted a scramble among its domestic competitors to upgrade their own AI models Chinese technology company Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) yesterday released a new version of its Qwen 2.5 artificial intelligence (AI) model that it said surpassed the highly acclaimed DeepSeek-V3. The unusual timing of the Qwen 2.5-Max’s release, on the first day of the Lunar New Year when most Chinese people are off work and with their families, points to the pressure Chinese AI start-up DeepSeek’s (深度求索) meteoric rise in the past three weeks has placed on not just overseas rivals, but also its domestic competition. “Qwen 2.5-Max outperforms ... almost across the board GPT-4o, DeepSeek-V3 and Llama-3.1-405B,” Alibaba’s cloud unit said in
RSS