Intel CEO says Chinese chip and AI technology is closing gap with US

Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan stated that Chinese chip technology is gradually narrowing the gap with the United States. During an interview with Nikkei Asia, Tan noted that Chinese technology is not significantly behind even under current US chip export controls.

Tan highlighted that Chinese-made AI models, such as Moonshot AI’s Kimi, Z.ai’s GLM, and DeepSeek, are becoming popular market choices because they are often open-sourced and significantly cheaper than American alternatives like OpenAI or Anthropic. He also observed that major Chinese institutions, including Peking and Tsinghua universities, are catching up to US counterparts in AI research.

Regarding the global semiconductor industry, Tan expressed concern over the high dependency of the chip foundry market on only one or two dominant companies. He suggested that firms such as Intel, TSMC, and Samsung should expand their production bases to prevent market monopolization and support broader technological growth.