China does not yet have the technology to overtake Taiwan.
China absolutely does have the technology to overtake Taiwan, and if you look at the history of how fast Chinese technology develops, it should be obvious that it’s not going to take long. Look at what happened with solar panels, EVs, batteries, phones, etc. In every case, once China ramped up research and production, they leapfrogged the rest of the world within years. China sees chip production as a national security issue, they will be pouring state level resources into it.
Right, and on top of it Huawei is coming up with new ways to arrange transistors with stuff like Tau folding architecture, which combined wtih EUV might actually allow Chinese chip makers to push far ahead of traditional chip designs.
The future of Chinese chip manufacturing is definitely bright it’s simply not here quite yet until the new machine succeeds in passing the final and most important hurdle of taping out a chip of acceptable quality.
So, the gap really isn’t that big in practice. Also worth noting that software side plays just as much role here as well. Android, iOS, Windows, MacOS, and even Linux all have a lot of legacy decisions baked into them for backwards compatibility needed to support existing software. Huawei building a fresh stack on top of HarmonyOS allows them to make a much leaner stack that’s not saddled with all the prior baggage. And that can make overall user experience a lot better even on slower hardware. Modern software is incredibly bloated, and addressing the bloat is a low hanging fruit that can be plucked right now without the need for EUV machines. The benefits will stack with faster chips as well just the same way Tau will stack with EUV.
In a way, decoupling from Western tech stack could actually provide a lot of benefits because it opens up the way for doing things differently without having to worry about the way existing legacy stack works.
I am well aware of all of this however as you maybe subconsciously added yourself:
So, the gap really isn’t that big in practice.
I agree the gap currently is the smallest it has ever been, there is however still a gap. I strongly believe from everything I know from my time in the industry that once Chinese EUV achieves a tape out the gap will not simply be closed but thanks to the build-up in novel workarounds that were required in the interim that can then be applied on top of the smaller dimension transistors we will be propelled to a substantial lead. However for now even if it is coming to an inevitable end we still trail the most advanced nodes.
China absolutely does have the technology to overtake Taiwan, and if you look at the history of how fast Chinese technology develops, it should be obvious that it’s not going to take long. Look at what happened with solar panels, EVs, batteries, phones, etc. In every case, once China ramped up research and production, they leapfrogged the rest of the world within years. China sees chip production as a national security issue, they will be pouring state level resources into it.
Meanwhile here’s what Stanford has to say about AI https://hai.stanford.edu/news/inside-the-ai-index-12-takeaways-from-the-2026-report
Not only has China basically closed the gap already, but they’re doing it at a tiny fraction of the cost.
Has is probably slightly ambitious. China’s first EUV machine was completed last year and won’t even produce chips until 2028. However once that milestone is passed the trajectory of what logically follows is obvious.
Right, and on top of it Huawei is coming up with new ways to arrange transistors with stuff like Tau folding architecture, which combined wtih EUV might actually allow Chinese chip makers to push far ahead of traditional chip designs.
The future of Chinese chip manufacturing is definitely bright it’s simply not here quite yet until the new machine succeeds in passing the final and most important hurdle of taping out a chip of acceptable quality.
It seems like Tau architecture might close the performance gap even without EUV though. Similarly Huawei managed to get clever with optical connections in their Ascend clusters to actually outperform NVIDIA for AI training. https://www.scmp.com/tech/tech-trends/article/3315068/how-huaweis-ascend-ai-chips-outperform-nvidia-processors-running-deepseeks-r1-model
So, the gap really isn’t that big in practice. Also worth noting that software side plays just as much role here as well. Android, iOS, Windows, MacOS, and even Linux all have a lot of legacy decisions baked into them for backwards compatibility needed to support existing software. Huawei building a fresh stack on top of HarmonyOS allows them to make a much leaner stack that’s not saddled with all the prior baggage. And that can make overall user experience a lot better even on slower hardware. Modern software is incredibly bloated, and addressing the bloat is a low hanging fruit that can be plucked right now without the need for EUV machines. The benefits will stack with faster chips as well just the same way Tau will stack with EUV.
In a way, decoupling from Western tech stack could actually provide a lot of benefits because it opens up the way for doing things differently without having to worry about the way existing legacy stack works.
I am well aware of all of this however as you maybe subconsciously added yourself:
I agree the gap currently is the smallest it has ever been, there is however still a gap. I strongly believe from everything I know from my time in the industry that once Chinese EUV achieves a tape out the gap will not simply be closed but thanks to the build-up in novel workarounds that were required in the interim that can then be applied on top of the smaller dimension transistors we will be propelled to a substantial lead. However for now even if it is coming to an inevitable end we still trail the most advanced nodes.