BEIJING: A state-owned Chinese company said yesterday that it plans to pour nearly US$15 billion into a giant memory chip factory, as China seeks to create homegrown semiconductor champions to reduce reliance on foreign technology.
Tongfang Guoxin Electronics Co aims to invest 93.8 billion yuan (US$14.8 billion) in the plant, it said in a filing with the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.
Tongfang Guoxin is controlled by Tsinghua Holdings Co, the commercial arm of Tsinghua University in Beijing.
China has been encouraging research and development of homegrown semiconductor technologies as part of its “national information security strategy.”
China needed to overcome “long-time restrictions imposed by the United States, Japan and Europe” over semiconductor materials and equipment, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said in a statement in June.
In the stock exchange filing, Tongfang Guoxin said: “China will only be able to effectively guarantee its information security by making its own … integrated circuits.”
Tongfang Guoxin will raise up to 80 billion yuan by selling new shares to eight companies and employees, the firm said, in what could be one of the world’s biggest private placement transactions.
Six of the eight corporate buyers in the placement are themselves affiliates of Tsinghua Holdings, according to the statement.
