Tsinghua Unigroup, the Chinese state-backed semiconductor group, has secured $22bn in new finances from government investors to fund acquisitions and help upgrade the country’s semiconductor industry.
Unigroup, which considered a $23bn bid for US chipmaker Micron in 2015, will receive Rmb100bn ($14.5bn) from China Development Bank and Rmb50bn from the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, an investment group in part backed by the Ministry of Industry and Investment Technology.
The capital injection comes as China’s top leadership attempts to encourage its technology companies to stop using western-developed chips, of which China imports more in dollar terms than oil.