IT Home On October 13, the 26th China International Industry Expo opened in Shanghai yesterday. At the Integrated Circuit Summit Forum held that afternoon, Yin Zhiyao, Chairman and General Manager of Zhongwei Company, discussed AI topics while analyzing industry trends.
He said that currently, the AI topic is very hot, and almost all meetings are discussing AI. However, he wanted to issue a warning: AI may develop into a bubble, and everyone needs to be careful about this.
Yin Zhiyao said that looking at the annual increase and decrease curves of global semiconductor industry CAPEX from 1984 to 2026, the fluctuations are very intense. The industry’s capital expenditure can increase by 100% in one year, or decline by 30% in another year, and there may be continuous downward trends. In the future, we may still experience cyclical changes in the industry. What matters is how to cope with these cyclical fluctuations.
In August this year, as US companies continue to invest large amounts of speculative capital in their AI data center expansion plans, European regulatory authorities have begun to consider the upcoming burst of the AI bubble. Major European banking institutions say the market is likely to adjust, and this impact will not spare any region or individual in the world.
IT Home note: Yin Zhiyao is known as “the father of Chinese etching machines.” He was the first Chinese student to work at Intel. He has worked in the United States for over 20 years and holds hundreds of patents. He has supported two world-class equipment companies.
At the age of 60, Yin Zhiyao resolutely gave up his annual salary of one million and returned to China to start a business. At that time, the Chinese semiconductor equipment market was almost blank. Later, he founded and led Zhongwei Company, making it one of the etching machine giants as renowned as the American company he used to work for.