Intel expands in China despite sanctions
A new innovation center in Shenzhen is just the latest of several initiatives this year
Intel continues to promote its business in China within the constraints of US government sanctions on the Chinese semiconductor industry. It has no interest in giving up the Chinese market, which accounted for 27% of its sales in 2022.
Illustrative of the company’s determination to carry on China business as usual, as calmly as possible, is the recent establishment of the Intel Greater Bay Area Innovation Center in the Nanshan district of Shenzhen, the southern Chinese city just across the internal border from Hong Kong. This was announced on WeChat at the end of July.
A joint project with the Nanshan government, the center will strengthen Intel’s business in China while supporting Nanshan’s high-tech industrial policy. Its activities are expected to encompass artificial intelligence (AI), edge computing, server and PC applications, energy efficiency and other technologies. Six local companies have reportedly already signed up.
Wang Rui, senior vice president and chair of Intel China, said the company will “leverage Intel’s technology and ecosystem, facilitate the integration and development of emerging sectors in the Greater Bay Area and help develop the digital economy.”
That is to say, Intel will provide technical assistance and marketing support for local companies making use of its technology. It will not be building new production capacity in China, which recipients of US CHIPS Act subsidies are not allowed to do.
So far this year, Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger has made two trips to China. In the first half of July, he visited Tsinghua Unigroup subsidiary H3C in Beijing, meeting with Tsinghua chairman Li Bin and H3C CEO Yu Yingtao to discuss their business collaboration.
H3C’s AI and general computing servers incorporate Intel’s Habana Gaudi2 deep learning and inference processor and its Xeon Scalable processors, respectively, while its new energy-efficient servers are also based on Intel technology. Intel introduced Gaudi2 to China at a press conference in Beijing on July 11.
H3C competitor Inspur Group also plans to use Gaudi2 in its AI servers. An IT conglomerate with interests spanning cloud computing, big data and virtualization software, Inspur is on the Commerce Department’s entity list, but Gaudi2 is not subject to export restrictions.
Gelsinger also met with xFusion Technologies chairman Liu Hongyun to discuss energy-saving data center technology and AI computing. Server and software provider xFusion operates in 130 countries and regions worldwide, serving more than 200 Fortune Global 500 companies and other customers in telecom, finance, internet, government, and other economic sectors.
In addition, it was reported that Gelsinger spoke with China’s State Administration for Market Regulation, but no further detail has been provided. Intel is still waiting for China to approve its acquisition of Tower Semiconductor, which was announced in February 2022. In January 2023, Intel announced that the deal might not be completed until the end of June. The final deadline is reported to be August 15.
Before these meetings, Gelsinger attended the 20th anniversary celebration of the establishment of Intel’s IC packaging and test facility in Chengdu. The Sichuan provincial governor and Chengdu party secretary were also present.
In April, Gelsinger attended an Intel forum in Beijing and also met with Chinese Vice President Han Zheng, Minister of Commerce Wang Wentao and Minister of Industry and Information Technology Jin Zhuanglong. They reportedly discussed supply chain stability, the investment environment in China and Intel’s plans to expand its business there.
Local companies that have signed up for the Greater Bay Area Innovation Center include Ugreen, a maker of chargers, USB hubs and other devices; the Senary Technology Group, which includes IC design company Senarytech and an electronic component distributor; and Chipsea Technologies, another IC design company.
Senarytech designs audio/video codec SoCs used in video conference systems, virtually reality, auto dashboards, commercial displays and other applications. Chipsea designs ICs for
industrial measurement and control, communications and computing, battery management, automotive, consumer and other applications.
Other Intel partners and customers in Shenzhen include:
- Shenzhen Innovation Technology: Product development, manufacturing and system integration in the fields of video detection and analysis, specializing in urban and expressway traffic data, scenario applications and automatic control of roadside infrastructure.
- Shenzhen Extreme Vision Tech: Video analytics for safety and security monitoring. Inspection algorithm using Intel Open VINO deep learning inference toolkit detects knives, guns, fireworks and other suspicious items.
- Shenzhen Eii Tech: Hardware and printed circuit board design, manufacturing and component sourcing, specializing in audio/video technology for Windows office tablet and notebook computers, industrial control, security, medical, education, networking, etc.
- Shenzhen Decenta Technology: Custom developer of X86-based and ARM-based embedded hardware solutions and manufacturer of terminals and edge servers for various applications including retail, digital signage, industrial control and security systems.
Shenzhen is home to one of China’s largest concentrations of high-tech companies, from numerous start-ups to telecom equipment makers Huawei and ZTE, technology and entertainment company Tencent, and the Southern University of Science and Technology of China. It has a population of about 13 million.
In addition to Hong Kong and Macau, the Greater Bay Area encompasses nine cities in Guangdong province including Shenzhen, the factory city of Dongguan and the capital city of Guangzhou. Together they surround the Pearl River delta. The population of the Greater Bay Area is more than 86 million and its GDP more than US$1.8 trillion – slightly larger than that of South Korea. It is an important part of Intel’s presence in China.
Wang Rui graduated from the Electronics Engineering School at the South China University of Technology in Guangzhou and earned a PhD in engineering at Columbia University. Before joining Intel in 1994, she worked at electronic design automation (EDA) company Cadence and Intel competitor AMD. A career path like this would be very difficult if not impossible for a Chinese graduate to pursue in the current political environment.
In 2020, when she was vice president in Intel’s Sales & Marketing Group and China country manager, Wang spoke at the Baidu World 2020 technology conference, where Intel and Baidu announced cooperative efforts in AI, 5G telecom, data center and cloud computing infrastructure:
“In China,” she said, “the most important thing for developing an industry ecosystem is to truly take root in the local market and its users’ needs. With the full-speed development of ‘new infrastructure’ and 5G, China has entered the stage of accelerated development of the industrial internet. Intel and Baidu will collaborate comprehensively to create infinite possibilities for the future through continuous innovation, so that technology can enrich the lives of everyone.”
Intel has been in China since 1985. It can probably outlast the current anti-China hysteria in Washington, DC.
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