Tech war: China chip industry event woos fewer exhibitors amid market headwinds, US export restrictions

A key semiconductor industry event in China attracted a smaller number of exhibitors this year, reflecting local market challenges and a desire to stay out of the limelight amid intensified US export restrictions.

The sixth edition of the World Semiconductor Conference (WSC), which kicked off Wednesday in Nanjing, the capital of China’s eastern Jiangsu province, drew more than 200 exhibitors from a wide range of chip-related applications such as artificial intelligence (AI), automotive, and electronic design automation (EDA) software, as well as global foundry leader Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), Huawei Technologies and Tencent Cloud.