November 29, 2022 | The Hill

Indecent exposure in critical supply chains

November 29, 2022 | The Hill

Indecent exposure in critical supply chains

Excerpt

In 2016, China’s Hefei Province launched a high-profile but cryptic and closely guarded industrial project: The “506 Project.” It leveraged some 54 billion RMB of provincial funds, backed by the Chinese central government’s integrated circuit investment fund, and the expertise of leadership from SMIC, one of China’s top state-owned semiconductor companies, which was placed on the Department of Commerce’s Entity List in 2020. The 506 Project’s goal was simple: To develop a Chinese domestic state champion in DRAM, or dynamic random access memory  — part of a larger effort to shore up indigenous capacity across the semiconductor value chain.

In 2018, the 506 Project became ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), a part of the “Made in China 2025” national strategy and China’s Science and Technology National Key Projects. In 2019, CXMT started mass production. Today, the company is closely integrated into China’s military and surveillance systems; supplies and partners with a “Who’s Who” of Chinese military and government players including DJI, Hikvision, China Telecom, and Huawei; and co-invests with Chinese government and military players. “CXMT has fired a resounding shot,” reported Chinese media in 2022, “in the chokehold counterattack.”

Issues:

China