[chvid]

They get subsidies, maybe not at the Chips act scale, but sizeable. Possibly indirectly via subsidies to Huawei who then can pay top dollar for SMICs 7nm.

Besides their core business is profitable and they are publicly traded in Hong Kong.

[alephnerd]

> maybe not at the Chips act scale

The Big Fund is CHIPS Act scale - if not bigger, as it's 3 generations of funds and has reached almost $100B over a decade.

[chvid]

Isn’t the chips act $250B? I suppose it the depends on how you count and compensate for price level.

[alephnerd]

Nope. It's $52B total in cash and tax credits from the government.

The $250B is the total capital from CHIPS and private investment. The other ~$200B is coming from private sector investments.

This is why the Big Fund is so big - it's been tough to raise private capital in China after the 2015-16 market crash so governments (central, provincial, and local) have had to step in to provide capital.

And if we're honest, the truly successful Chinese companies at the global scale (BYD, ByteDance, Tencent, PDD/Temu, Shein) always took private capital, and as such were able to outcompete state funded alternatives.

[bgnn]

Well, everyone is state sponsored in this field at the moment. TSMC's biggest shareholder is Taiwanese state. Global Foundries is owmed by Mubadala and getting US gvt injections. Intel was a true exception.

[undersuit]

I didn't say they didn't. SMIC is a state sponsored company. Their objectives are different than an American company like Intel.

[FuriouslyAdrift]

For reference, TSMC spends around $30 - $40 billion a year all by itself for R&D