With government incentives, Taiwan has achieved significant success in localizing display equipment, though the competitiveness of the display industry has declined considerably in the process. Semiconductor equipment has also been listed as a key area for government support by Taiwan’s Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA). Over the past five years, the self-sufficiency rate of semiconductor equipment has risen from 15% to 18%, meaning that more than 80% of Taiwan’s semiconductor equipment still relies on foreign sources.

A former researcher at Samsung Electronics was sentenced to seven years in prison on April 22 by a South Korean court for leaking core semiconductor trade secrets to a Chinese competitor. The case highlights how chip-making technology is increasingly regarded by governments as a national security asset under strict protection.

Shenzhen has brought online what project materials describe as China’s first 14,000P, 10,000-card AI computing cluster built around a fully domestic technology stack, marking a new stage in the country’s push to reduce reliance on foreign hardware and software in large-scale model training.