It doesn't matter whether the stock price of "Hanwang" rises or falls. What matters is that the expectation for Chinese chips has changed.

The chip industry is bustling with activity.

Recently, Cambricon has found itself at the center of the storm. As its stock price once exceeded that of Kweichow Moutai, earning it the title of the "King of the Capital Market," it was soon followed by a sharp decline, which in turn led to criticism.

The true quality of Cambricon still needs to be tested, but the rise of domestic chips is an irresistible trend.

For many years, overseas chip giants have held an indisputable dominant position. However, with the continuous progress of domestic substitution, the competitive landscape has undergone subtle changes. The Kirin chip reappeared at a press conference after a four - year hiatus, the 30,000 - card cluster of Kunlun Chip was activated, and domestic DDR5 was launched...

Undoubtedly, Chinese chips have gained greater momentum.

Becoming a New Benchmark for Exports

There was a time when domestic chips were synonymous with backwardness.

Wang Shouwu, the founder of Chinese semiconductor science, sighed in 1977: "There are more than 600 semiconductor manufacturing plants in the country, and the total annual output of integrated circuits is only one - tenth of the monthly output of a Japanese factory with 2,000 employees."

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

The problem is that falling behind at one step can lead to continuous setbacks. It is extremely difficult to bridge the decades - long gap. For a long time, domestic chips were caught in an awkward situation where they neither received acclaim nor achieved good sales.

The article "Sixty Years of China's Chip Industry: From Nothing to a Flourishing Trend" pointed out: "This has led to a 'death spiral' - domestic semiconductors and software have many problems due to their late start, so few people are willing to use them. And the lack of buyers and users further results in the domestic industrial chain lacking subsequent funds for technological upgrading and having difficulty in detecting problems in products."

As the saying goes, nothing in the world is difficult if you put your heart into it.

On the one hand, with the support of large funds, industrial funds, and the capital market, the domestic chip industrial chain has continued to advance. Over time, it has gradually shed its weak label.

Data from the China Semiconductor Industry Association shows that the chip industrial chain is divided into three links: design, manufacturing, and packaging and testing. The packaging and testing link, which has the lowest technological content, accounted for more than 50% of the sales volume in 2007. After 2015, the design and manufacturing links began to gain momentum, and the industrial chain has developed towards a more balanced direction. By 2023, the proportions of the three links were 44.56%, 31.56%, and 23.88% respectively.

The Kirin chip reappeared at a press conference after a four - year hiatus

SMIC is a case in point.

Shouldering the heavy responsibility of breaking through in the "domestic chip" field, SMIC took only more than 40 days from submitting its prospectus to listing for trading. With the help of the capital market, it has entered the fast lane, promoting the upgrading of the domestic chip industrial chain and bravely breaking the technological monopoly in chip manufacturing processes.

On the other hand, technology companies in fields such as mobile phones, automobiles, and the Internet have increased their investment in domestic chips, becoming important driving forces for the iteration of the domestic chip industrial chain.

For example, ByteDance has invested in XinYuan Semiconductor, a next - generation storage chip company, Moore Threads, a unicorn in GPU chip design, and Simu Computing, an AI chip company.

Another example is Alibaba's T - Head Semiconductor, which has developed a new - generation AI inference chip that is compatible with NVIDIA's CUDA ecosystem, aiming to fill the gap in the mid - end market.

Against this background, domestic chips have shown strong growth.

Data from the General Administration of Customs shows that in 2024, the export volume of integrated circuits was 298.1 billion pieces, 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.

Source: Semiconductor Industry Review

It is not difficult to see that although domestic chips have encountered various difficulties, their rise is an irresistible trend.

Why Are the Giants Betting on Domestic Chips?

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

First, self - control.

Due to the complex international situation, especially after 2018, self - control has become a must - have option rather than an optional one for all industries.

Among them, HiSilicon is particularly worth mentioning.

In 2004, Huawei established its wholly - owned subsidiary, HiSilicon, which gradually became an undisputed leader in the domestic SoC field. At its peak, its market share in China reached the top.

However, HiSilicon encountered a difficult period.

Xu Zhijun, then the rotating chairman of Huawei, said at HAS 2021: "HiSilicon is a chip design department for Huawei, not a profit - making company. So we don't have a profit requirement for it. We just keep this team."

After a period of dormancy, HiSilicon has made a comeback.

Data from Counterpoint Research shows that in the global smartphone application processor market in the first quarter of 2025, HiSilicon's market share was 4%, compared with 2% in the same period of the previous year, showing significant progress.

Source: Counterpoint Research

Nowadays, Huawei Mate XTs officially announced that it will be equipped with the Kirin 9020 chip, clearly signaling that the domestic chip supply chain has achieved full - link self - control.

Second, moving towards the high - end market.

Currently, moving upmarket has become a consensus in the mobile phone industry, which places higher requirements on the core competitiveness of products. Therefore, self - developed chips are regarded as a shortcut to the high - end market.

Lin Zhi, the chief analyst at WitDisplay, said in an interview with the media: "Chips are the key factor in defining the differentiated experience of mobile phones. In the AI - driven smartphone era, the in - depth collaboration between chips and software will directly affect the brand image and product competitiveness of mobile phone manufacturers."

In fact, Apple's self - developed A - series and M - series chips have enabled it to break free from the constraints of chip giants. Through a combination of hardware and software integration, Apple has long dominated the global high - end consumer electronics market.

Domestic mobile phone brands are also following the same path.

Take Xiaomi as an example. As early as 2017, it launched its first SoC chip, the Surge S1, and later successively launched the ISP chip Surge C1 and the battery management chip Surge G1.

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

After many setbacks, Xiaomi's Xuanjie O1 was unveiled in 2025.

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

Lei Jun said: "Although the Xuanjie O1 still has a long way to go compared with world - class giants, I always believe that as long as we start to catch up, we are on the road to victory."

Source: Lei Jun's Weibo

Third, cost reduction and efficiency improvement.

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

DeepSeek has caused a stir in the technology circle by reducing costs through means such as algorithm optimization.

An industry insider told Zinc Scale: "Low - cost software solutions are cost - effective, but it doesn't mean that the demand for computing power can be ignored. Especially in the multi - modal scenario, the demand for computing power of large models will increase exponentially, as the continuous upgrading of multi - modal model capabilities is an irresistible trend."

Therefore, Baidu has provided another solution for the industry: it activated the first 30,000 - card cluster based on Kunlun Chip in China to reduce the unit cost of computing power.

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

Fourth, meeting differentiated demands.

In the automotive field, overseas chip giants have long dominated the market. Although their general solutions are mature and reliable, they inevitably lead to homogenization. The pursuit of "being unique and better than others" has always been the aspiration of all industries.

After all, car manufacturers clearly know what kind of SiC chips are suitable for their vehicles. Self - development not only yields better results but also saves time and effort, enabling them to seek differentiated competitiveness.

For this reason, Li Auto, XPeng, NIO, BYD, etc. have laid out self - developed automotive - grade chips such as intelligent driving chips, SiC chips, and IGBT chips.

Xie Yan, the chief technology officer of Li Auto, evaluated the self - developed intelligent driving chip M100: "Different from other AI chips on the market, we have adopted a real hardware - software co - design approach. The chip, compiler, runtime system, and Halo operating system were designed together from the very beginning. Therefore, we can more easily vertically integrate hardware and software modules into a more powerful AI inference system and continue to expand in the future."

In general, the capital market has a strong preference for Cambricon. Beyond the hype, it also reflects the recognition of the remarkable progress of domestic chips. With the all - around development of domestic chips, it is not impossible to compete with overseas giants in the future.

Therefore, the market has greater expectations for domestic chips.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Zinc Scale" (ID: znkedu), written by Chen Dengxin and published by 36Kr with authorization.