Recently, there has been a stark contrast in data related to semiconductor manufacturing equipment, which appears quite unusual.

On one hand, our country is importing high-end semiconductor manufacturing equipment on a large scale, with an increase of up to 70%.

On the other hand, this has not become good news for overseas chip giants; instead, the investment of the top 10 giants in the semiconductor equipment sector is expected to be significantly reduced by 16%.

What signal does this send?

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Combining data from customs and other sources, we find that in just the past two months, there has been a substantial increase in the import of high-end semiconductor manufacturing equipment in our country, with an increase of up to 70%.

However, on the other hand, according to the Nikkei News, the investment amount of the top 10 chip giants from the United States, Europe, Japan, and South Korea in semiconductor equipment is expected to decrease by 16% in the fiscal year of 2023, falling to $122 billion. This will be the first decline in the past four years, and the drop will set a record for the largest decline in the past decade.

The reason for this phenomenon is not solely due to the pandemic and economic downturn; the more critical factor is the lack of support from the Chinese market demand, forcing major semiconductor equipment giants to cut investments and orders.

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The semiconductor equipment industry has long been an essential pillar of the global technology industry. However, this industry is currently facing a period of winter.

In the past few years, the Chinese market has been a significant driver of demand for semiconductor equipment. However, due to a series of factors, including trade wars and policy restrictions, the demand in the Chinese market is being suppressed.Although we have been making significant purchases over the past few months, analysts have pointed out that this is a preemptive buying behavior in response to the latest restrictions, and future orders from China will be significantly reduced.

This poses a huge challenge for the global semiconductor equipment industry, as the Chinese market plays an indispensable role in the global semiconductor industry chain.

In addition, this is also closely related to the breakthrough progress our country has made in some of these sub-industries.

Among them, the investment of the top ten giants in storage equipment has decreased by 44%, a drop far greater than the overall level.

Storage equipment is a core device in fields such as data centers and cloud computing. However, due to the reduced demand in the Chinese market, global semiconductor equipment manufacturers have to cut investments to adapt to market changes.

But it should be noted that the real demand has not decreased, it's just that China has made significant progress in storage chips, so these demands can be met internally. The only thing that has decreased is the external demand for imports.

As one of the world's largest semiconductor markets, the reduction in demand for semiconductor equipment in China will directly affect the global supply chain and have a profound impact on the industry.

Overseas chip giants are increasingly realizing that if they don't sell their products to China now, they may never have the opportunity again.China's rapid development in the international high-end manufacturing sector has caused tension among Western countries. In an effort to attract outstanding enterprises in the chip industry, the United States introduced the CHIPS Act and provided substantial subsidies. However, this move has had an unexpected backlash.

Now, more and more companies are realizing that obtaining subsidies in the United States is not easy, and investing in the U.S. market will increase wage costs, land costs, and financial costs brought about by the Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes. As a result, some important chip companies have made adjustments.

TSMC has now returned to Taiwan and established a new Global Innovation Center, demonstrating TSMC's plan to stay in Taiwan.

Samsung has also shifted more investments and production capacity back to South Korea, showing South Korea's competitiveness in the global chip market.

Even American chip giants have begun to consider foreign development, such as the news of Intel's in-depth cooperation with Shenzhen.

It can be said that the layout of the CHIPS Act has failed.