Technological Breakthrough and Domestic Substitution of Key Products Based on Asymmetric Competition: Taking the Integrated Circuit Industry as an Example

Abstract

Integrated circuit is a typical key product in the digital economy era. Given external containment, breakthroughs in core technologies of integrated circuit are confronted with barriers of first movers in underlying technological ecology and with their threats of decoupling from the supply chain. Currently, China has various bottlenecks in the proprietary industrial ecosystem, and domestic substitution lacks effective overall planning. Therefore, it is essential to apply the underlying logic of asymmetric competition and to leverage a relatively complete industrial system, abundant application scenarios, solid talent base, and the institutional advantages of the new system for mobilizing resources nationwide to break through in integrated circuit manufacturing technology and in domestic substitution. As such, it is necessary to further strengthen the top-level design, leverage the advantages of the new system for mobilizing resources nationwide to enhance the institutional guarantee for domestic substitution of bottlenecks, and enhance basic research to consolidate the technological foundation for domestic substitution. Moreover, we should implement talent strategy to enhance the driving force of human resource for domestic substitution development. We should also further opening-up and cooperation policy to create an open domestic substitution ecology. In addition, we should increase counter-cyclical investment to nurture leaders in asymmetric competition, and seize the demand window to drive domestic substitution with “epoch-making products.”

Keywords

key products, technological catch-up, domestic substitution, asymmetric competition, integrated circuit

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