The Kirin 9030 Pro processor was the most advanced chip made in China when it launched in late 2025.Designed by Chinese tech giant Huawei and made by Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) in China, it was used to power Huawei’s flagship Mate 80 Pro smartphones.Despite the advances, semiconductor research and analysis company SemiAnalysis said the chip’s performance was akin to that of a 3-year-old flagship Android phone when it launched.Its architecture was also “several generations” behind the chips put out by Apple, Samsung and Qualcomm.China is playing catch-up, but a technological breakthrough called immersion deep-ultraviolet (DUV) could help it narrow the gap with its rivals.The US tried to halt China's tech rise with sanctions. Now, a homegrown chip push could reshape the global order. Will it succeed?By Kevin Kwang, Lee Long Hui | Published Sep 5, 2026When China unveiled its 10-year Made in China 2025 master plan in 2015 to shift gears from churning out low-end products to becoming a global heavyweight in high-tech industries such as semiconductors and electric vehicles, the world took notice - especially the United States.As a means to counter its rival’s move, the Americans have increasingly relied on trade policies and export restrictions to slow China’s progress.It started with placing domestic tech giant Huawei and its affiliates on the Department of Commerce’s Entity List, preventing its access to US-made tech and equipment, in 2019.It then widened its restrictions to the whole semiconductor industry three years later so as to limit China’s ability to design and make advanced chips. This has only become more targeted in scope and details in recent times as the US and its allies tightened the proverbial noose.Staying competitive despite restrictionsTo reduce its dependence on foreign tech and strengthen its own domestic supply chain, China has been accelerating its investments in building out local capabilities in areas such as chip design, manufacturing, packaging and equipment through champions in each field.For instance, Huawei focuses on chip design and SMIC innovates in the foundry space. Meanwhile, Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) specialises in NAND flash memory and ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) is China’s main manufacturer in the DRAM space.This is why immersion DUV is having its moment in the spotlight currently.China is said to have begun mass production of domestically developed immersion DUV lithography machines, which could eventually help Chinese chipmakers produce more advanced chips than the likes of Kirin 9030 Pro.So how does the immersion DUV method work?A chip contains billions of tiny electronic switches called transistors. The lines between them carry electrical signals, much like roads carrying traffic through a city. It is built from many layers of “roads”.Lithography is the process of printing the patterns that form those “roads” and transistors onto a silicon wafer using light.A common method used is DUV. A DUV machine uses, for example, 193-nanometre light to print the patterns onto a wafer. The finer the pattern, the more transistors can be fitted into the space.Immersion DUV uses the same 193-nanometre light, but adds a thin layer of purified water between the lens and the wafer. Doing so helps focus the light more, allowing smaller patterns to be printed.While China’s progress in immersion DUV is significant, it does not bring it on par with the far more powerful extreme ultraviolet (EUV) technology, which uses a shorter 13.5-nanometre light that can etch more difficult patterns on chips and with fewer steps - thus reducing the likelihood of errors.As of today, ASML in the Netherlands is the sole manufacturer of the EUV lithography machine. And due to export restrictions, the US and its allies have access to the machine and technology but not China.Economist and international relations analyst at Global Asia Consultant Samirul Ariff Othman told CNA that immersion DUV could “plug an important hole” in China’s semiconductor production architecture, but it is still not a substitute for EUV technology.He pointed out the ability to scale the production of immersion DUV machines is key.“The challenge now shifts from ‘can China build one?’ to ‘can China manufacture them reliably, improve them continuously and achieve competitive yields?’,” Samirul said.Additionally, immersion DUV requires several patterning and processing steps that may lead to higher chances of alignment errors, defects and lower yields compared to EUV, he said.It takes a global villageIt needs to be said that any breakthrough achieved via immersion DUV would address but one part of the entire semiconductor production, albeit an important one.“Lithography is only one stage of semiconductor production,” Samirul said.“But lithography is not simply ‘one small part’ among many. It is one of the most difficult technological chokepoints.”The analyst’s observations reflect how complex the global semiconductor ecosystem is.The Netherlands contributes to this via ASML and its EUV tech, Taiwan’s TSMC dominates in high-end chipmaking while South Korea’s Samsung and SK Hynix play key roles in DRAM.Then there are markets like Singapore that play in many parts of the supply chain, including making mass-market chips and manufacturing equipment.Below is a snapshot of the ecosystem and the key players within.The semiconductor ecosystem is global yet specialisations lie in key markets. Expertise in chip design, materials, manufacturing and packaging are spread across different economies that depend on one another.USA leads in chip design. Based on 2021 revenue-share data, US companies, such as Nvidia, Intel and Qualcomm, accounted for 46 per cent of global semiconductor-design revenue - more than double its nearest competitor.Chipmaking starts with raw materials like quartz, which is purified, processed, melted and formed into ultra-pure silicon cylinders called ingots.USA and Germany are major exporters of raw materials such as high-purity quartz. China and Japan are major net importers.The ingots are sliced into thin wafers, and chips are fabricated on these wafers. Taiwan’s TSMC and South Korea’s Samsung are leaders in advanced chipmaking.The most advanced chips require EUV lithography systems solely made by the Netherlands company ASML, which also makes DUV systems.After fabrication, chips are cut from the wafer, packaged and tested. Much of this work takes place in the Asia-Pacific region, including China, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines.These chips power consumer and enterprise products alike, from smartphones and electric vehicles to data centres and industrial equipment. China is a major electronics maker, while the US taps on high-end artificial intelligence and data centre chips.Towards a self-sufficient ecosystemEconomist Geoffrey Williams reckons that China is no longer a technology laggard or imitator as it was previously known. In fact, he thinks it has the potential to build a self-sufficient ecosystem.“It has been investing in research and development infrastructure, human resources and research institutes for decades and is attracting world-class researchers and academics from abroad to join its own homegrown teams of technologists and researchers who have been educated abroad,” he told CNA.Should China face trade restrictions and sanctions like it is experiencing currently, it is likely to develop alternative technologies of its own, said the founder of Williams Business Consultancy in Malaysia.“It is already ahead in many areas, especially in AI, for example. Its manufacturing infrastructure is also world-leading. The time when Western governments could stop China through restrictions on intellectual property or people is long gone,” Williams added.Neil Shah, co-founder and vice president at Hong Kong-headquartered Counterpoint Research, said one way of measuring China’s success is that it has gone wide faster than it has gone deep.On mature-process chipmaking nodes, China has already become a price setter squeezing margins across the industry, he said.Shah acknowledged that US export controls did slow China’s progress at the top end in the short term, particularly in AI and leading-edge technologies, but the advantage Beijing has is that it can continue funding the domestic chipmaking industry without worrying about returns on investment.This takes the commercial problem off the table and turns its effort into a sovereign self-sufficiency project, he told CNA.That's the major difference versus Western firms, and a good luxury to have when no investor is questioning every dollar of the bottom line. In effect, it's made them partly immune to the very sanctions meant to constrain them.Neil Shah Co-founder and vice president at Counterpoint ResearchCould consumers benefit from China’s ambitious chip plans?Asked what China’s tech push means for the average person, Samirul suggested that if Chinese firms can achieve competitive real-world performance through these alternative paths, consumers stand to win - not just through lower prices, but also innovation brought forth by competition.The flip-side of this scenario is that tech fragmentation creates two increasingly incompatible semiconductor ecosystems, duplicated investment and reduced economies of scale.This, in turn, could raise costs.“So consumers could experience both effects simultaneously: greater competition within technological blocs, but less efficiency across the global economy,” said Samirul.