prioritize “your” technology, even worse

Nvidia It is not another supplier of the Chinese market. He developed a special chip for him. He spent a lot of money on adapting his Blackwell technology to overcome US government restrictions.

Prepared A cheaper GPU than H20specifically designed To meet the demands of Washington without losing the 17,000 million dollars that China represents in its annual turnover. And it sold very well.

The last strategic movement of Xi Jinping transmits a clear message: China no longer wants to depend on US chips. Not even those adapted.

It is a practically unprecedented decision because it leaves China choosing a lower (but temporary) technological position with its own semiconductors. The alternative was to access world leadership. But depending on American chips.

Xi Jinping is a deeply Chinese movement: to support present humiliation to load with a greater responsibility. “忍辱负重” (Ren Ru Fu Zhong) In technological version. Who controls the technological basis controls the future. Although the base is initially lower.

The strategy is not new: China has been applying this logic for twenty years. When Google dominated searches, he opted for Baidu. When Facebook conquered the world, they developed Wechat. When the planet hooked on Instagram, Tiktok proposed. The same pattern: initially worse proposals, but Chinese.

The result is that of a completely independent digital ecosystem that serves a market four times greater than the American without depending on Silicon Valley.

The semiconductors are the level rise in this bet. Unlike software, chips require decades of investment, very complex supply chains and tremendously specialized knowledge. But China has already shown that it is willing to pay that price building A parallel technological ecosystem with Huawei in semiconductors and consumer electronics, Metax or Biren for GpusMoore Threads in Gaming and many other companies backed by the State. The goal: completely replace Nvidia in a decade.

This transformation sublimates post-pandemic China. For decades, the country was the world workshop: it manufactured Western designs with labor as large as cheap. That ended. The new China is a technological creator, does not mere efficient manufacturing.

The pandemic and scars of the commercial war that almost takes Huawei accelerated that transition: China understood that it depended too much on foreign technology And he drew a plan.

The China strategy It reflects this evolution: not only that Baidu, Alibaba or Tencent have models that compete with those of OpenAi; It is that each layer is China. Servers, chips, data with which they train. Everything is sovereign and AI is really China.

The results, despite how it is, are more than promising: Alipay and Wechat Pay have displaced both cash and Visa and Master Card. Alibaba and JD cancel Amazon. They built from scratch before depending on foreign technology. And in some cases they have surpassed the originals. Even in its own market.

This rupture marks the moment when technological globalization died definitely. Two Silicon Valley emerge: one that designed for the West and a Chinese ecosystem that designed for the rest. Digital bifurcation crystallizes. China has decided to build its own technological world, accepting the initial inferiority to avoid eternal subordination. A civilization with ancient vision sacrifices the present for the future.

Xi’s decision redefines the meaning of “winning” in technology.

• For decades, winning meant having the best products, the most advanced, which the market preferred.
• China proposes a different metric: winning is controlling your technological destination, even if you temporarily have lower products.

It is prefer to imperfect sovereignty to excellence borrowed.

Nvidia, Intel or Qualcomm can try to convince XI that they are better with them. They can sign with their own blood and others the concessions that are needed to continue doing business there (as Apple did). They can promise unbeatable conditions and unprecedented technological transfers. But The president has already chosen: China will be independent or will not be power.

And that decision has just changed the world order for the next fifty years.

In Xataka | Chine

Outstanding image | Xataka