Es ist an der Zeit, dass das erste "chinesische Silicon Valley" sich selbst rehabilitiert.

In the past two days, Shenzhen has witnessed a soaring popularity in the semiconductor industry.

At the center of the topic is the 2025 Bay Area Semiconductor Industry Ecosystem Expo (hereinafter referred to as the "Bay Core Expo"), which opened today. The participation of globally renowned chip companies has made Shenzhen a window for the aggregation of various resources in the chip industry. What's even more concerning is how Xinkailai, a company born in Shenzhen and known as the "DeepSeek in the semiconductor industry", will "bring unexpected surprises".

Source of the on - site pictures of the expo: National Business Daily

This can be regarded as the "highlight moment" of Shenzhen's science and technology innovation since this year. Rewind to the beginning of this year, when tech upstarts like DeepSeek and Unitree Technology suddenly emerged, making the industry suddenly see the infinite potential of Hangzhou. Some netizens even joked that this was an "industrial surprise attack" by Hangzhou on Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen.

According to the outside world's inherent impression, in the domestic context, Shenzhen must be on the list of the most likely birthplaces for such new tech companies. After all, Shenzhen is famous for technological innovation, with its ICT industry well - known globally. It is the preferred destination for many tech companies and one of the earliest cities to be called the "Silicon Valley of China".

So, what is Shenzhen doing? In fact, in the past few years, as one of the cities with the greatest growth potential in China's semiconductor industry, Shenzhen has been trying to break the label of "strong in design but weak in manufacturing" in the semiconductor and integrated circuit industry and improve the security and stability of the supply chain.

Now, at the Bay Core Expo, known as the "No.1 brand of semiconductor exhibitions in China", Shenzhen has come to the moment of "submitting its answer sheet". With semiconductor self - owned brands as the "anchor point", Shenzhen wants to "clear its name" and re - polish its position in the competition pattern of the national chip industry cities.

1

One Exhibition

As early as March this year, Xinkailai caused a stir in the industry.

At that time, at SEMICON China 2025, the world's largest semiconductor industry exhibition held in Shanghai, Xinkailai, which had rarely appeared before, brought 31 newly released and mass - produced semiconductor devices at one go on its first participation, becoming a "dark horse" at the exhibition.

As a semiconductor rookie, Xinkailai seems "aggressive" because these devices cover all aspects of semiconductor manufacturing and are more or less intended to "break through" the dominance or monopoly of international giants and break the existing competition pattern.

Among the many devices displayed this time, the etching equipment and thin - film deposition equipment attracted the most attention. Taking the etching equipment as an example, in the core link of semiconductor manufacturing, etching is like a precise carving in the chip world. The precision of the plasma etching process directly determines the quality of the chip's microstructure.

Source of the picture: National Business Daily

The "background" of Xinkailai is another topic. According to local media reports, around 2018, in the face of the rising risk of the international supply chain, Huawei launched the "Starlight Project" internally, focusing on the independent research and development of semiconductor manufacturing equipment. In 2021, Huawei spun off this department, and the State - owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Shenzhen Municipality reorganized it through a major industrial investment group to establish Xinkailai Technology Co., Ltd., enabling the core technology team to accelerate market - oriented implementation in the form of an independent enterprise.

At this exhibition, while the above - mentioned devices reappeared, the "new surprise" came from several Shenzhen subsidiaries of Xinkailai.

Among them, Qiyunfang Technology officially released two domestic electronic engineering EDA software with complete independent intellectual property rights. This is the "drawing tool" for drawing circuit diagrams and designing mobile phone and computer motherboards, which was previously monopolized by American companies such as Synopsys and Cadence for a long time. And Wanliyan Company released a new - generation ultra - high - speed real - time oscilloscope independently developed by itself, also achieving a historic leap of being "the only one in China and the second in the world", equipping electronic engineers with "eyes".

Some analysts believe that the significance of Xinkailai's breakthrough lies more in the zero - to - one layout and the guarantee of the independent and controllable industrial chain. In addition to putting the label of "Made in Shenzhen" on more semiconductor devices, Shenzhen also intends to play a bigger game.

At a previous press conference, Guo Ziping, the director of the Shenzhen Development and Reform Commission, pointed out that Shenzhen will promote the Bay Core Expo with the goal of being the "No.1 exhibition of domestic semiconductor self - owned brands in China".

At this expo, in addition to local Shenzhen enterprises, domestic semiconductor manufacturing enterprises from all over the country are all present. They cover all aspects from design, manufacturing, testing, and packaging to upstream materials and equipment, forming a complete domestic semiconductor industry system.

What is particularly noticeable is the industry's first large - scale "Chiplet and Advanced Packaging Ecosystem Zone" jointly built by nearly 30 units, including Zhuhai Silicon Core Technology Co., Ltd., chip design, packaging and manufacturing companies, scientific research institutions, and industrial alliances. This technology, known as "Chiplet", is an important attempt for China to break the global chip monopoly.

2

One Industry

Compared with its current ambition to lead the country, Shenzhen's semiconductor industry was more often labeled as "limping" before.

As Guo Ziping said, in the past, Shenzhen's semiconductor "design industry was far ahead, while the others still seemed to have some distance from design". These short - boards include chip manufacturing, packaging and testing fields, as well as equipment and materials, and the industrial chain development was once considered "extremely unbalanced".

However, the semiconductor industry is crucial to Shenzhen's entire industrial structure.

Not to mention that Shenzhen's traditional advantageous consumer electronics industry cannot do without the support of chips. Now, from unmanned driving, low - altitude economy to embodied intelligence and other future industries that Shenzhen focuses on developing, all are deeply linked to the semiconductor industry.

Source of the picture: Photographic Network 500813635

How to break the situation? Shenzhen chose to start from the top - level design.

Since the "14th Five - Year Plan", when the chip industry was placed at an unprecedented height in Guangdong Province, in 2022, when Shenzhen reshaped the city's industrial pattern and formulated the "20 + 8" industrial clusters, it listed the semiconductor and integrated circuit industrial cluster as a key sub - field of strategic emerging industries. Then, a series of policy systems related to the semiconductor industry have been continuously constructed.

Now, as Guo Ziping summarized, Shenzhen has made a "six - one" arrangement for the semiconductor industry, namely "one fund, one exhibition, one forum, one association, one alliance, one team". Among them, the Bay Core Expo is included as the "one exhibition". And for Shenzhen, which is well - known for its "state - owned capital system", the establishment of the "one fund" has attracted more attention.

In May this year, the Shenzhen Semiconductor and Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, the "Semi - Industry Private Equity Fund", completed industrial and commercial registration. The initial scale reached 5 billion yuan, backed by two major state - owned assets in Shenzhen, Shenzhen Capital Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shenzhen Capital") and Shenzhen Major Industry Investment Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shenzhen Major Investment").

Some people have sorted out that previously, more than 70% of Shenzhen Capital's funds were invested in "bottleneck" fields, and it also made dozens of investments in the semiconductor field, which is also a major contribution to Shenzhen being known as the "origin of venture capital in China".

Shenzhen Major Investment has also laid out many key enterprises in the semiconductor field. Xinkailai is wholly - owned by Shenzhen Major Investment. In Pinghu Street, Longgang District, where Xinkailai is located, many enterprises and institutions such as Pengxinwei and Pinghu Laboratory are also gathered. R & D, manufacturing, and application form a closed - loop here, jointly constituting a "street with a full ecological chain of the semiconductor industry".

With the help of capital, Shenzhen is brewing a new round of collective growth in the semiconductor industry.

Especially this year, several semiconductor companies born in Shenzhen completed a new round of financing. For example, Lingming Photonics, targeting 3D camera chips, announced the completion of a Series C3 financing, and Xinsheng Semiconductor, focusing on front - end RF chips, also completed a Series B + financing.

Behind this, Shenzhen is stepping onto a new trend of industry development. Some industry insiders point out that objectively, Shenzhen's semiconductor industry is neither the earliest to develop nor the most advantageous. However, with the rise of AI hardware, there are huge opportunities from Shenzhen to the Greater Bay Area. Driven by demand, more and more semiconductor startup companies will be attracted to gather here.

3

One City

In a sense, this is also another manifestation of Shenzhen's logic of "innovation driven by demand".

Looking back at the beginning of this year, when the "DeepSeek question" swept across the country, Guangdong, especially Shenzhen, was in a state of innovation anxiety. Even though Shenzhen had accumulated some achievements in the field of artificial intelligence, it still could not avoid the question of "who will succeed DJI in innovation".

Many people also began to reflect on Shenzhen's innovation path. A representative view, as expressed by Zhong Ruoyu, a professor at the School of Economics of Shenzhen University, is that in the past, Shenzhen's technological innovation paradigm has evolved from the "processing with supplied materials" model to the market - driven path of "demand - led", forming an innovation system with enterprises as the main body and the market as the orientation, creating the unique experience of "six 90s".

Furthermore, a culture of "user - orientation" and "demand - orientation" has penetrated into all aspects of Shenzhen's urban development and operation, and even formed a government with user thinking.

Source of the picture: Photographic Network 501422249

However, there is a consensus that as technological innovation enters deeper waters, it increasingly depends on source innovation. For Shenzhen, which lacks scientific research institutions due to "inherent disadvantages", this change also poses new challenges.

In contrast, the "Six Little Dragons" represented by DeepSeek in Hangzhou show a closer connection with source innovation through the label of "Zhejiang University System". A more intuitive example is that Zhejiang University is one of the earliest universities in China to offer undergraduate courses in robotics, and it has also sent many important talents to enterprises such as DeepRobotics and Qianxun Intelligence.

Looking further back to Silicon Valley, where the semiconductor industry germinated, the innovation model of "anchoring +" was also indispensable. The "anchoring" refers to the Stanford University High - Tech Park and the William Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory, which gave birth to companies such as Intel and Fairchild Semiconductor at that time.

Regarding this, Shenzhen is not without countermeasures.

In the past few years, Shenzhen has been "madly building universities" to make up for the short - board of higher education. In order to improve the basic research ability, it has also insisted on investing no less than 30% of the municipal science and technology R & D funds in basic research and applied basic research.

But in a sense, in promoting a new round of innovation in the semiconductor industry, Shenzhen still cannot do without the reverse - push of market demand.

When talking about the company's product strategy, Liu Sang, the CEO of Wanliyan, once mentioned that "we don't have much choice. We are born for strategy and must solve the (bottleneck) problems." In this situation, "customers who have been restricted by the United States or those who pursue technological progress will naturally cooperate with us."

Now, with more and more semiconductor enterprises overcoming "bottleneck" technologies growing and gathering, Shenzhen is finding its own "DeepSeek". However, as global technological competition enters a new stage, especially with the intensification of technological games, how Shenzhen can make good use of its own advantages and upgrade its innovation model may be the key to promoting the development of its semiconductor industry.

This article is from the WeChat public account "Urban Evolution Theory", author: Yang Qifei, published by 36Kr with authorization.