A Chinese TV show about the semiconductor business? ‘My Chinese Chip’ is exactly that and it just debuted in China and hopefully will show up in the West as well.
Just a week ago, the WSJ was reporting that China’s chip industry “braces for further sanctions with concerns and Defiance” and now there’s an actual drama series about this precise topic.
The trade war subject couldn’t be more timely and technology movie fans might do well not to skip this one, though we don’t know yet where you can watch “My Chinese Chip”.
According to Bloomberg, the title of the Alibaba TV series “My Chinese Chip” is a pun, since ‘chip’ sounds like ‘heart’ in Chinese. Its official English title however will be ‘The Best Chip’.
“My Chinese Chip hits on a priority issue for the Beijing government — semiconductor leadership and self-sufficiency — and depicts a state-supported firm successfully building lasers for deep ultraviolet lithography machines,” says Bloomberg.
You can watch the “My Chinese Chip” trailer here but the only line in English is the actual opening line “We are executing a lithography machine trading war against China’s government.”
“My Chinese Chip” is streaming right now on Youku, a platform owned by Alibaba Group Holding Limited.
According to Yahoo Finance, it “focuses on the semiconductor leadership and self-sufficiency theme, an essential priority for the Chinese government.”
Since the Trump administration, China has faced increased sanctions against exporting semiconductors and other parts and the pressure is rising, with the Biden administration preparing to restrict Chinese companies’ access to U.S. cloud-computing services.
Since China had restrictions on purchasing powerful chips from the US, a way to avoid those sanctions was to use cloud services to “rent” cloud computing capabilities, a loophole that’s now set to close.
Until ‘My Chinese Chip’ releases on a worldwide platform and gets some subtitles (like the excellent Tencent Three-Body Problem adaptation), you can find out more about how China is adapting to sanctions in this NYT article titled “‘De-Americanize’: How China Is Remaking Its Chip Business”.
Since everyone is familiar with the trend to buy gadgets, TVs or phones not made in China, China is also avoiding the “made in America” tag.+
Also read: Made in the U.S.A: Here Is The Tech That Is Truly Manufactured in America
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