CHINA WATCHChina’s Chip Talent Problem Worsens After Layoffs at U.S. Firm Marvell
Marvell Technology has confirmed that it is eliminating research and development staffs in China – the third U.S. chipmaker that has done so this year as the U.S.-China tech rivalry intensifies. This will hobble China’s chip ambitions and worsen its talent shortfall in the field of designing and manufacturing cutting-edge computer chips.
Santa Clara, California-based chip producer Marvell Technology has confirmed that it is eliminating research and development staffs in China – the third U.S. chipmaker that has done so this year as the U.S.-China tech rivalry intensifies.
Observers say this will hobble China’s chip ambitions and worsen its talent shortfall in the field of designing and manufacturing cutting-edge computer chips.
“China is definitely going to be at a loss when it comes to American companies like Marvell essentially redesigning their workforce, because China still hasn’t reached a point where it’s able to pump out the same level of chip talent as America or the UK or Israel,” Abishur Prakash, a co-founder at Center for Innovating the Future (CIF) in Canada told VOA over the phone.
China Becoming Off-Limits
These tech giants are aware the era when companies could set up supply chains and move talent around the globe freely is coming to an end and “China is becoming off-limits for Western companies,” added Prakash, the author of five books including the latest one, titled “The World is Vertical: How Technology Is Remaking Globalization.”
Marvell’s decision came weeks after the Biden administration, in early October, imposed additional curbs on China-bound exports of advanced chips, as well as the technology and equipment to produce 14-nanometer chips or better.
The new rules also prohibited “U.S. persons” including U.S. citizens and green card holders from working at Chinese chip firms, in an apparent move to stem the flow of U.S.-trained tech talent to China.
“In China, we will focus our R&D [research and development] investments on local customers and the China market,” Stacey Keegan, vice president of Corporate Marketing at Marvell told Reuters in a statement last Thursday. “As a part of this realignment, several of our business units and functions are announcing changes to their global location strategy that will result in the elimination of roles in China,” he added without specifying how many staff it is cutting.
U.S. memory chip giant Micron announced in January it would close its 100-member DRAM design operations in Shanghai, while Texas Instruments in May moved its microcontroller unit R&D team in Shanghai to India.
And more companies may follow suit to downsize their China operations, CIF’s Prakash said.
