As Washington tries to convince the Netherlands and Japan to match China’s export sanctions, top Japanese leaders say that won’t be enough to halt the progress of the Middle Kingdom.
Can the United States stop China?
According to Sony chief technology officer Hiroaki Kitano, US sanctions will only have a ” temporary impact about China’s ability to source semiconductors. He feels he is quite likely that China will continue to progress in the field of artificial intelligence, despite the sanctions imposed by the Biden administration.
Several Japanese leaders are ringing the alarm bell and ensuring that while China’s progress may indeed be slowed down, it will not be completely wiped out. Indeed, they believe that the driving force behind the development of artificial intelligence in China is access to very large datasets. From this perspective, US export restrictions will have little impact on the country.
Same speech on the side of the general manager of NEC, Takayuki Morita. He also expressed doubts about the long-term effectiveness of the measures imposed by the White House. Measures aimed at slowing down China’s ability to develop chips and to prevent it from obtaining advanced semiconductors that can be used for military purposes. He assures that “ the general trend will not change “.
According to the two leaders, the world cannot ignore “ China’s competitiveness in new technologies, and the country will maintain its position in the long term “. Yet the sanctions put in place by Washington in October 2022 are the toughest measures ever deployed by the US administration against China. Observers believe that these measures plan to accelerate China’s efforts to develop its own chip industry.
Precisely, this is already the case with Huawei, which is trying to create a new 100% Chinese supply chain. Indeed, in the port city of Quanzhou, in southeastern China, an almost abandoned factory, hit by American sanctions four years ago, quietly came back to life. Huawei is relaunching the machine with the aim of doubling its chip production in two years.
The country intends to implement its roadmap “ Made in China 2025 “. A strategy driven by the Communist Party, which aims to make China a world leader in artificial intelligence and quantum computing.