The chip race track can be described as bustling with people.

Recently, Cambrian has been at the forefront of controversy: due to its stock price surpassing Maotai at one point, it has been crowned as the "King of Cold" in the capital market, followed by a sharp decline and criticism.

The quality of Cambrian is still to be tested, but the rise of domestic chips is the trend.

For many years, overseas chip giants have had an undisputed say, but with the continuous promotion of domestic substitution, the competitive landscape has also undergone subtle changes. Kirin chips have returned to the press conference after four years, Kunlun chip 30000 card cluster has been lit up, and domestic DDR5 has been launched

Undoubtedly, Chinese chips have gained greater potential.

Becoming a new benchmark for exports

Once upon a time, domestic chips were synonymous with backwardness.

In 1977, Wang Shouwu, the founder of Chinese semiconductor science, lamented, "There are more than 600 semiconductor production factories in China, and the total amount of integrated circuits produced in a year is only one tenth of the monthly output of a 2000 person factory in Japan

Afterwards, domestic chips embarked on a long journey of catching up.

The problem is that falling behind step by step is not easy to erase decades of gap. For a considerable period of time, domestic chips have been in an awkward situation where they are neither well received nor popular.

The article "60 Years of Chinese Chip Volatility: From Nothing to a Spark" points out that "this has led to a 'death spiral' - domestic semiconductors and software started late, had many problems, and not many people are willing to use them; and no one buys or uses them, which further leads to a lack of follow-up funds in the domestic industry chain for technological upgrades, and it is difficult to detect problems in products

As the saying goes, nothing in the world is difficult for those who are determined.

On the one hand, with the support of large funds, industry funds, and capital markets, the domestic chip industry chain has continued to advance, gradually shedding its weak label over time.

According to data from the China Semiconductor Industry Association, the chip industry chain is divided into three stages: design, manufacturing, and packaging and testing. The packaging and testing stage, which has the lowest technical content, accounted for over 50% of sales in 2007. After 2015, the two major stages of design and manufacturing have taken off, and the industry chain is developing towards balance. By 2023, the three major stages will account for 44.56%, 31.56%, and 23.88% of sales, respectively.

Kirin chip returns to press conference after four years

This can be seen from SMIC.

With the heavy responsibility of breaking through with the "domestic chip" industry, SMIC took just over 40 days from submitting its prospectus to listing for trading. Leveraging the power of the capital market, it embarked on the fast lane and promoted the upgrading and replacement of the domestic chip industry chain, overcoming difficulties and breaking the technological monopoly of chip manufacturing processes.

On the other hand, technology enterprises in mobile phones, cars, the Internet and other fields have increased the number of domestic chips, becoming an important driver of the iteration of the domestic chip industry chain.

For example, ByteDance has invested in the next-generation memory chip company Xinyuan Semiconductor, GPU chip design unicorn Moore Thread, AI chip company Him Computing, etc.

For example, Pingtouge Semiconductor, a subsidiary of Alibaba, has developed a new generation of AI inference chips that are compatible with Nvidia's CUDA ecosystem, aiming to fill the gap in the mid-range market.

In this context, domestic chips have become more prominent.

According to data from the General Administration of Customs, the export volume of integrated circuits in 2024 was 298.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11.31%;

The export value was 159.5 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 17.28%, surpassing mobile phones to become the single commodity with the highest export value.

Image source: Semiconductor Vertical and Horizontal

It is not difficult to see that although domestic chips have encountered various difficulties, the road to rise is unstoppable.

Why are giants all betting

Chinese chips are quietly changing the rules of the game, and there are three reasons behind this.

Firstly, it is autonomous and controllable.

Due to the complexity of the international situation, especially after 2018, autonomy and controllability are no longer optional for all industries, but a necessary option.

Among them, HiSilicon Semiconductor is particularly worth mentioning.

In 2004, Huawei established a wholly-owned subsidiary, HiSilicon Semiconductor, gradually becoming an undisputed leader in the domestic SoC field, and at its peak, its market share in China reached its peak.

The black swan descended, and Haisi encountered a water reversal.

Xu Zhijun, who was then the rotating chairman of Huawei, stated at HAS 2021 that "HiSilicon is a chip design department for Huawei, not a profitable company, so we do not have a profit demand for it itself. We just support this team.

At the end of hibernation, there was a echo, and Hisi came back to life.

According to data from Counterpoint Research, in the first quarter of 2025, HiSilicon's market share in the global smartphone application processor market was 4%, compared to 2% in the same period last year, making significant progress.

Image source: Counterpoint Research

Nowadays, Huawei Mate XTs officially announced the installation of Kirin 9020 chip, which unreservedly signals that the domestic chip supply chain has achieved full chain autonomy and controllability.

Secondly, move towards the high-end.

At present, striving for excellence has become a consensus in the mobile phone industry, which puts higher demands on the core competitiveness of products. Therefore, self-developed chips are seen as a shortcut to high-end development.

WitDisplay's Chief Analyst, Lin Zhi, stated in a media interview that "chips are the key element that can define the differentiated experience of mobile phones. In the era of AI driven smartphones, the deep collaboration between chips and software will directly affect the brand image and product competitiveness of mobile phone manufacturers. ”

In fact, Apple has independently developed A-series and M-series chips, breaking free from the constraints of chip giants and dominating the global high-end consumer electronics market for a long time through the strategy of software and hardware integration.

And domestic mobile phone brands have also entered the same river.

Taking Xiaomi as an example, it launched its first SoC chip, the Pengpai S1, as early as 2017, and subsequently launched ISP chip Pengpai C1, battery management chip Pengpai G1, and others.

Lei Jun once admitted, "If Xiaomi wants to become a hardcore technology company, chips are the peak that must be climbed and the tough battle that cannot be avoided

Good things take time, the Xiaomi Xuan Jie O1 will be unveiled in 2025.

This means that Xiaomi has become the second Chinese mobile phone brand to achieve commercial mass production of flagship SoC chips after Huawei, greatly enhancing its voice in the high-end market.

Although Xuanjie O1 still has a big gap compared to world-class giants, I always believe that as long as we start catching up, we will be on the road to victory. ”Lei Jun said so.

Image source: Lei Jun's Weibo

Again, reduce costs and increase efficiency.

In recent years, cost reduction and efficiency increase have become the core demands of Internet companies. Especially in the context of tight computing power, it is particularly difficult to balance high efficiency and low cost.

DeepSeek has caused a stir in the technology industry by reducing costs through algorithm optimization and other means.

An industry insider told Zinc Scale, "Low cost software solutions have high cost-effectiveness, but it does not mean that the demand for computing power can be ignored, especially under multimodality. The demand for computing power for large models will show GEOmetric growth, after all, the continuous upgrading of multimodal model capabilities is the trend

So, Baidu provided another solution for the industry: lighting up the first 30000 card cluster based on Kunlun chip in China to reduce unit computing power costs.

In this way, not only does it solve the problem of its own computing power supply, but it also greatly offsets the premium problem of computing power.

Finally, meet differentiated demands.

In the automotive industry, overseas chip giants have long dominated the market. Although they have adopted mature and reliable universal solutions, it is difficult to avoid homogenization. "I have what others don't have, and I am excellent when others have" has always been the long cherished wish of thousands of industries.

After all, car companies are well aware of what kind of SiC chips they are compatible with. Self research not only yields better results, but also saves time and effort, thus seeking differentiated competitiveness.

Because of this, companies such as Ideal, Xiaopeng, NIO, BYD, etc. have laid out self-developed intelligent driving chips, SiC chips, IGBT chips and other automotive grade chips.

Xie Yan, Chief Technology Officer of Ideal Automotive, commented on the self-developed intelligent driving chip M100 as follows: "Unlike other AI chips on the market, we adopt a true software hardware collaborative design approach, where the chip, compiler, runtime system, and Halo operating system are designed together from the beginning. Therefore, we can more easily integrate hardware and software modules vertically into more powerful AI inference systems and continue to expand in the future. ”

In summary, the capital market has shown great favor towards Cambrian, and there is also recognition beyond speculation that domestic chips are no longer the same as before. With the comprehensive development of domestic chips, it is not impossible to compete with overseas giants in the future.

So, the market has higher expectations for domestic chips.

The chip race track can be described as bustling with people.

Recently, Cambrian has been at the forefront of controversy: due to its stock price surpassing Maotai at one point, it has been crowned as the "King of Cold" in the capital market, followed by a sharp decline and criticism.

The quality of Cambrian is still to be tested, but the rise of domestic chips is the trend.

For many years, overseas chip giants have had an undisputed say, but with the continuous promotion of domestic substitution, the competitive landscape has also undergone subtle changes. Kirin chips have returned to the press conference after four years, Kunlun chip 30000 card cluster has been lit up, and domestic DDR5 has been launched

Undoubtedly, Chinese chips have gained greater potential.

Becoming a new benchmark for exports

Once upon a time, domestic chips were synonymous with backwardness.

In 1977, Wang Shouwu, the founder of Chinese semiconductor science, lamented, "There are more than 600 semiconductor production factories in China, and the total amount of integrated circuits produced in a year is only one tenth of the monthly output of a 2000 person factory in Japan

Afterwards, domestic chips embarked on a long journey of catching up.

The problem is that falling behind step by step is not easy to erase decades of gap. For a considerable period of time, domestic chips have been in an awkward situation where they are neither well received nor popular.

The article "60 Years of Chinese Chip Volatility: From Nothing to a Spark" points out that "this has led to a 'death spiral' - domestic semiconductors and software started late, had many problems, and not many people are willing to use them; and no one buys or uses them, which further leads to a lack of follow-up funds in the domestic industry chain for technological upgrades, and it is difficult to detect problems in products

As the saying goes, nothing in the world is difficult for those who are determined.

On the one hand, with the support of large funds, industry funds, and capital markets, the domestic chip industry chain has continued to advance, gradually shedding its weak label over time.

According to data from the China Semiconductor Industry Association, the chip industry chain is divided into three stages: design, manufacturing, and packaging and testing. The packaging and testing stage, which has the lowest technical content, accounted for over 50% of sales in 2007. After 2015, the two major stages of design and manufacturing have taken off, and the industry chain is developing towards balance. By 2023, the three major stages will account for 44.56%, 31.56%, and 23.88% of sales, respectively.

Kirin chip returns to press conference after four years

This can be seen from SMIC.

With the heavy responsibility of breaking through with the "domestic chip" industry, SMIC took just over 40 days from submitting its prospectus to listing for trading. Leveraging the power of the capital market, it embarked on the fast lane and promoted the upgrading and replacement of the domestic chip industry chain, overcoming difficulties and breaking the technological monopoly of chip manufacturing processes.

On the other hand, technology enterprises in mobile phones, cars, the Internet and other fields have increased the number of domestic chips, becoming an important driver of the iteration of the domestic chip industry chain.

For example, ByteDance has invested in the next-generation memory chip company Xinyuan Semiconductor, GPU chip design unicorn Moore Thread, AI chip company Him Computing, etc.

For example, Pingtouge Semiconductor, a subsidiary of Alibaba, has developed a new generation of AI inference chips that are compatible with Nvidia's CUDA ecosystem, aiming to fill the gap in the mid-range market.

In this context, domestic chips have become more prominent.

According to data from the General Administration of Customs, the export volume of integrated circuits in 2024 was 298.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 11.31%;

The export value was 159.5 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 17.28%, surpassing mobile phones to become the single commodity with the highest export value.

Image source: Semiconductor Vertical and Horizontal

It is not difficult to see that although domestic chips have encountered various difficulties, the road to rise is unstoppable.

Why are giants all betting

Chinese chips are quietly changing the rules of the game, and there are three reasons behind this.

Firstly, it is autonomous and controllable.

Due to the complexity of the international situation, especially after 2018, autonomy and controllability are no longer optional for all industries, but a necessary option.

Among them, HiSilicon Semiconductor is particularly worth mentioning.

In 2004, Huawei established a wholly-owned subsidiary, HiSilicon Semiconductor, gradually becoming an undisputed leader in the domestic SoC field, and at its peak, its market share in China reached its peak.

The black swan descended, and Haisi encountered a water reversal.

Xu Zhijun, who was then the rotating chairman of Huawei, stated at HAS 2021 that "HiSilicon is a chip design department for Huawei, not a profitable company, so we do not have a profit demand for it itself. We just support this team.

At the end of hibernation, there was a echo, and Hisi came back to life.

According to data from Counterpoint Research, in the first quarter of 2025, HiSilicon's market share in the global smartphone application processor market was 4%, compared to 2% in the same period last year, making significant progress.

Image source: Counterpoint Research

Nowadays, Huawei Mate XTs officially announced the installation of Kirin 9020 chip, which unreservedly signals that the domestic chip supply chain has achieved full chain autonomy and controllability.

Secondly, move towards the high-end.

At present, striving for excellence has become a consensus in the mobile phone industry, which puts higher demands on the core competitiveness of products. Therefore, self-developed chips are seen as a shortcut to high-end development.

WitDisplay's Chief Analyst, Lin Zhi, stated in a media interview that "chips are the key element that can define the differentiated experience of mobile phones. In the era of AI driven smartphones, the deep collaboration between chips and software will directly affect the brand image and product competitiveness of mobile phone manufacturers. ”

In fact, Apple has independently developed A-series and M-series chips, breaking free from the constraints of chip giants and dominating the global high-end consumer electronics market for a long time through the strategy of software and hardware integration.

And domestic mobile phone brands have also entered the same river.

Taking Xiaomi as an example, it launched its first SoC chip, the Pengpai S1, as early as 2017, and subsequently launched ISP chip Pengpai C1, battery management chip Pengpai G1, and others.

Lei Jun once admitted, "If Xiaomi wants to become a hardcore technology company, chips are the peak that must be climbed and the tough battle that cannot be avoided

Good things take time, the Xiaomi Xuan Jie O1 will be unveiled in 2025.

This means that Xiaomi has become the second Chinese mobile phone brand to achieve commercial mass production of flagship SoC chips after Huawei, greatly enhancing its voice in the high-end market.

Although Xuanjie O1 still has a big gap compared to world-class giants, I always believe that as long as we start catching up, we will be on the road to victory. ”Lei Jun said so.

Image source: Lei Jun's Weibo

Again, reduce costs and increase efficiency.

In recent years, cost reduction and efficiency increase have become the core demands of Internet companies. Especially in the context of tight computing power, it is particularly difficult to balance high efficiency and low cost.

DeepSeek has caused a stir in the technology industry by reducing costs through algorithm optimization and other means.

An industry insider told Zinc Scale, "Low cost software solutions have high cost-effectiveness, but it does not mean that the demand for computing power can be ignored, especially under multimodality. The demand for computing power for large models will show GEOmetric growth, after all, the continuous upgrading of multimodal model capabilities is the trend

So, Baidu provided another solution for the industry: lighting up the first 30000 card cluster based on Kunlun chip in China to reduce unit computing power costs.

In this way, not only does it solve the problem of its own computing power supply, but it also greatly offsets the premium problem of computing power.

Finally, meet differentiated demands.

In the automotive industry, overseas chip giants have long dominated the market. Although they have adopted mature and reliable universal solutions, it is difficult to avoid homogenization. "I have what others don't have, and I am excellent when others have" has always been the long cherished wish of thousands of industries.

After all, car companies are well aware of what kind of SiC chips they are compatible with. Self research not only yields better results, but also saves time and effort, thus seeking differentiated competitiveness.

Because of this, companies such as Ideal, Xiaopeng, NIO, BYD, etc. have laid out self-developed intelligent driving chips, SiC chips, IGBT chips and other automotive grade chips.

Xie Yan, Chief Technology Officer of Ideal Automotive, commented on the self-developed intelligent driving chip M100 as follows: "Unlike other AI chips on the market, we adopt a true software hardware collaborative design approach, where the chip, compiler, runtime system, and Halo operating system are designed together from the beginning. Therefore, we can more easily integrate hardware and software modules vertically into more powerful AI inference systems and continue to expand in the future. ”

In summary, the capital market has shown great favor towards Cambrian, and there is also recognition beyond speculation that domestic chips are no longer the same as before. With the comprehensive development of domestic chips, it is not impossible to compete with overseas giants in the future.

So, the market has higher expectations for domestic chips.