China-developed chips to be adopted in government and core industries

China-developed computer chips will be widely adopted in government bureaus and core industries like banks and energy firms, Shanghai-based chip designer Zhaoxin said today.

It’s the latest effort by China to improve cyber and technology security nationwide by developing own chips with a high level of security and software amid the furor surrounding security flaws found recently in Intel chips.

The chips are developed by Shanghai Zhaoxin Semiconductor Co, and supported by a government fund as well as industry partners including Lenovo Group Ltd — China’s biggest computer vendor — and clients such as the Bank of Shanghai.

In 2018, Zhaoxin aims to ship about 100,000 to 200,000 computer chips, up from almost 30,000 chips in 2017, said Ye Jun, chairman and chief executive of Zhaoxin. 

The chip flaws, which affect billions of smart devices including phones, computers and tablet computers, are due to a fundamental hardware defect that can’t be fixed short of a recall, according to experts. 

Companies from Microsoft to Apple have announced efforts to patch the vulnerabilities. Intel promised fixes in the coming week for 90 percent of the processors the world’s biggest computer chip maker has made in the past five years.