Chip war: Chinese firms play down fresh US sanctions, tout local supply chain

Newly blacklisted Empyrean and Skyverse say the sanctions will have little impact, pointing to their local tech stack and domestic customers

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Semiconductor firms newly added to the US Entity List say they will see little impact from the sanctions, as their supply chain is largely localised already. Photo: Reuters

Ann Caoin ShanghaiandChe Panin Beijing

Published: 1:29pm, 3 Dec 2024

Chinese semiconductor companies newly added to a US trade blacklist said the business impact of Washington’s latest sanctions will be manageable, according to corporate filings.

Beijing-based chip design tool developer Empyrean Technology, one of the 140 Chinese organisations added this week to the so-called Entity List compiled by the US Commerce Department, said the impact is “generally controllable”. Shares of the Shenzhen-listed company gained 3 per cent on Tuesday morning.

The core technologies the company uses in its software come from its “own patents and technologies through self-development”, the company said, adding that it has full rights to these technologies and thus can ensure the independence of its operations. Empyrean, which counts state-owned China Electronics and the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund as its backers, aims to become a global leader in electronic design automation software by 2030 – a market currently dominated by US-based firms Cadence, Synopsis and Siemens EDA, formerly Mentor Graphics before being acquired by Germany-based Siemens.

Shanghai-listed chip equipment maker Skyverse Technology said it is not seeing any “significant impact” from the US move because it has been preparing for external shocks for the last five years. The company is able to produce key components locally and sells to the domestic market, the Shenzhen-based company told China Business News. Its shares fell 0.25 per cent on Tuesday morning.

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Naura Technology Group, the country’s leading semiconductor equipment maker, has not commented about being blacklisted. Its stock price in Shenzhen fell 3 per cent on Tuesday morning.