China Xiaomi Continues Redesign of Chip Strategy by Investing in Semiconductor Designer

SHANGHAI: China's Xiaomi Corp. has taken about 6 percent stake in fellow chip maker VeriSilicon Holdings Co Ltd.

The investment comes as the government identifies chips as one of the many sectors in which it wants the country to become more autonomous through its "Made in China 2025" initiative.

In a document filed online Thursday with the Chinese Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), VeriSilicon revealed that a fund managed by Xiaomi had become its second largest external shareholder in June.

Xiaomi Corp confirmed the investment to Reuters. None of the companies has disclosed its monetary value.

The largest external shareholder of VeriSilicon is the Investment Fund in China's integrated circuit industry, a centralized national fund intended for the domestic semiconductor industry, better known as the "The Big Fund".

The company is headquartered in Shanghai and has research and development centers on its territory and in the United States. He usually works as an entrepreneur for other chip companies, helping them to complete additional elements of semiconductor design.

CHIPS FAR

Xiaomi has seen rapid growth since the release of its first smartphone early in the decade, becoming the world's fourth largest seller in the first quarter of this year, showed the latest data from IDC researcher. However, he had less success in chips.

The company launched a semiconductor division in 2014 and three years later, it announced its first on-chip system, the Surge S1. The chip present in the Xiaomi Mi 5 smartphone but has not been deployed more widely.

Subsequently, no major flea announcements were announced until April: an internal memo indicated that Xiaomi was to divest a portion of its chip business to a subsidiary called Big Fish, which specializes in chip manufacturing for Internet devices. -of-Things.

Xiaomi is not alone in his smart ambitions. Huawei's HiSilicon subsidiary, which specializes in chip manufacturing, manufactures Kirin processors for its own smartphones, which experts say is roughly competitive with high-end chips from the US-based Qualcomm Inc.

In the broader technological sphere, last year, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., a leading e-commerce company, bought the Chinese chip maker C-Sky. Its chief technology officer later announced that the company would unveil its first artificial intelligence chip in the second half of 2019.

A trade war with the United States resulting in tariffs on technological goods and services has been strengthened, while a US ban on supplying Chinese telecom equipment manufacturer Huawei Technologies Co Ltd because of national security concerns also disrupted the sector.

(Report by Josh Horwitz, additional report by Samuel Shen, edited by Christopher Cushing)