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China is investing heavily in chip-making facilities and talent to secure semiconductor independence. Growing global demand for specialised chips for artificial intelligence (AI) is putting AI at the centre of China's economic future. Deloitte predicts revenue from chinese-made semiconductors will rise 25 per cent to $110bn in 2019 from $85bn in 2018 to meet growing domestic demand for chipsets, partly because of the increasing commercialisation of artificial intelligence. Deloitte further predicts that in 2019, foundries in China will start producing semiconductors specifically designed to support AI and machine learning (ML) tasks. As China becomes a major consumer of semiconductors (more than 50 per cent of the total is consumed annually, including domestic and final exports), its growth drives the industry. However, Chinese manufacturers can only meet about 30 per cent of their needs. Amid macroeconomic transformation and the growing value of artificial intelligence, the Chinese government and leading digital companies have signaled that domestic semiconductor self-sufficiency is an important part of the future. They are investing and hiring heavily to create local manufacturing capacity close to the world's top contract factories. Many Chinese companies are designing semiconductors specifically for artificial intelligence and designing chip architectures at the forefront of the mobile smartphone industry. With strong co-ordination between the state and domestic manufacturers, China is using vast amounts of capital and vast markets to advance its agenda. Although China has failed to expand its semiconductor industry in the past few decades, it is likely to succeed this time. The evolving relationship between computing and emerging technologies may further support its success.