The Download: China’s chiplets, and OpenAI’s DALL-E 3 watermarking

For the past couple of years, US sanctions have had the Chinese semiconductor industry locked in a stranglehold. Chinese companies can still manufacture chips for today’s uses, but they are not allowed to import certain chipmaking technologies, making it almost impossible for them to produce more advanced products.

There is a workaround, however. A technology known as chiplets is now offering China a way to circumvent these export bans, build a degree of self-reliance, and keep pace with other countries, particularly the US. 

Chiplets are one of several ways that the semiconductor industry could keep increasing the computing power of chips despite their physical limits. But for Chinese chip companies, chiplets could reduce the time and costs needed to develop more powerful chips domestically and supply growing, vital technology sectors like AI. Read the full story.

—Zeyi Yang

If you’d like to learn more about Wuxi, the center of chip packaging, check out the latest edition of China Report, our weekly newsletter covering tech and power in the country. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Tuesday.

Chiplets were one of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2024. Read more here.

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