China wants foreign investment to help build microchips

China's trying to become a world-leader in the production of 'semiconductors', they're a kind of microchip and are pretty crucial to its tech industry. It needs help raising the money to do that.

What it means: This story kind of shows how reliant countries are on each other when it comes to developing different industries. China already has a big tech industry, but it until now was importing a lot of the chips it needed from overseas. In fact, China currently buys 59 per cent of all the chips produced in the world.

Now, you might remember that China and the US have been talking tough in a 'trade war'. Semiconductors are part of that, and the US is keen to stop China totally dominating the development of next-generation technologies (that's things like AI).

China is now intent on decreasing its reliance on overseas products. But to do that, it needs overseas money. It's trying to invest What's this?  more in its domestic industry, and has set up a fund – it's called the China Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Co. – to make sure there's enough money. For China, even if foreign investors are helping fund it, it's still hugely beneficial that it's building its own stuff, rather than buying from overseas.