Amid intensifying technological competition with the United States, China has unveiled a large-scale plan to rebuild its semiconductor industry.

According to Chinese media outlets such as the Global Times on the 15th (local time), China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Development and Reform Commission released the "15th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Electronic Information Manufacturing Industry."

Local experts evaluate that this plan will serve as an opportunity to build a systematic and structural industrial system, going beyond previous stopgap measures.

As the primary task among the key initiatives to be pursued until 2030, the plan proposes "strengthening industrial foundational capabilities," stating that it will break through technological bottlenecks across the entire integrated circuit industry chain.

Along with this, it set a goal to raise the annual revenue of the electronic information manufacturing industry—which stood at 17.4 trillion yuan (approx. 3,556 trillion won) last year—to over 30 trillion yuan (approx. 6,131 trillion won) by 2030.

China's electronic information manufacturing industry serves as a core pillar of the Chinese economy, ranking first in revenue among all 41 industrial sectors for 13 consecutive years.

Bolstered notably by the recent artificial intelligence boom, revenue in the first half of this year increased by 18.5% compared to the same period last year, reaching 9.41 trillion yuan.

Experts explain that this plan encompasses all six core sectors of the integrated circuit industry: design, manufacturing, packaging and testing, equipment, materials, and electronic design automation (EDA) tools.

Zhang Xiaolong, head of the Beijing Advanced Technology Research Institute, pointed out, "The 17 key tasks presented explicitly specify the resolution of bottlenecks," adding, "Without controllable domestic semiconductors, the 30 trillion yuan revenue target is bound to have a weak foundation."

Particularly under circumstances where the United States restricts the supply of advanced equipment such as extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography systems, he diagnosed that technological gaps in lithography equipment, EDA, advanced materials, and advanced manufacturing processes remain the biggest Achilles' heel.

Zhang further evaluated, "This plan goes beyond merely catching up in specific technologies; it aims to build a self-reliant industrial system that is resilient to damage and equipped with alternative means."

In addition to semiconductors, the plan also includes cutting-edge computing fields such as in-memory computing, quantum computing, and space-based computing, as well as energy electronics like solar cells, advanced smart terminals, and the BeiDou navigation satellite system.

Ao Li, vice president of the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, stated that inter-state competition is shifting from the scale of individual products to overall system capabilities, predicting that the convergence of AI and the electronic information manufacturing industry over the next decade will be a decisive variable reshaping the industrial landscape.

(Photo: AP, Yonhap News)