China is about five years behind the market leaders in global chip manufacturing technology, a report from US think tank ITIF has claimed.

In 2022, the US imposed sweeping restrictions on the sale of advanced chips and manufacturing gear to China, which has forced the country to seek self-sufficiency in the semiconductor industry. The most advanced chips are considered crucial to stay at the forefront of technological innovation – not least of all AI, which requires vast amounts of processing power.

But the ITIF report finds that Chinese firms are roughly five years behind global leaders in high-volume manufacturing of cutting-edge chips and that the country’s efforts to “catch up” across different subsectors has been uneven.

For example, Chinese enterprises are thought to be only around two years behind leading competitors in the design of logic chips used in mobile devices or AI applications. But in other subsectors – notably in memory chips, semiconductor manufacturing equipment and...