China has concluded its largest funding round to date in support of its embattled semiconductor industry, with the so-called Big Fund raising Rmb344bn ($47bn) to aid President Xi Jinping's self-sufficiency drive in the face of US efforts to restrict the country’s access to the latest technology. The third round of the fund, officially called the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund Phase III, is China’s largest pool of capital to be targeted at seeding companies and technologies to overcome what Beijing refers to as “chokepoints” for its chip industry. It has been assembled from contributions from the finance ministry, local governments, state-owned enterprises and, for the first time, state-owned banks.

It comes amid an escalating tech race with the west and echoes efforts in Washington and European capitals to build up their own domestic semiconductor industries. The US has extended billions of dollars in subsidies for groups to build chip plants on American soil. 

The Big Fund previously raised Rmb139bn and Rmb200bn in 2014 and 2019 and has a record of supporting Chinese chip champions and propelling the industry’s growth.