anubisSonOfRa

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anubisSonOfRa
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Reuters - Exclusive: How China built its ā€˜Manhattan Project’ to rival the West in AI chips $ASML.AS Reuters has published an article describing how china has managed to build a prototype EUV machine for producing state of the art semiconductor chips. No chips have been produced yet though. Chinese scientists, backed by a six-year state initiative, have secretly built and begun testing a crude but operational prototype EUV lithography machine in a Shenzhen lab. Apparently they reverse‑engineered technology from ASML and parts salvaged from older Western tools. The machine, described as China’s ā€œManhattan Projectā€ for semiconductors, can generate EUV light but has not yet produced working chips. Beijing’s goal is chip production by 2028, though people involved see 2030 as more realistic, still years earlier than many analysts expected. The project relies heavily on Chinese‑born former ASML engineers working under aliases, aggressive global recruitment with large bonuses, and a nationwide network of institutes and companies coordinated by Huawei, whose engineers often live on‑site under strict security. China’s main bottleneck is reproducing ultra‑precise optics like those supplied to ASML by Carl Zeiss, so research institutes such as CIOMP and the Shanghai Institute of Optics are racing to develop domestic alternatives while teams of young engineers painstakingly reverse‑engineer EUV and DUV components sourced via secondary markets and intermediaries despite U.S.-led export controls. I'm not worried yet. Source (paywall): https://www.reuters.com/world/china/how-china-built-its-manhattan-project-rival-west-ai-chips-2025-12-17/