Huawei and SMIC quietly rolled out a new Kirin 9000C processor.
Chinese foundry SMIC may have broken the 5nm process barrier, as evidenced by a new Huawei laptop listed with an advanced chip with 5nm manufacturing tech — a feat previously thought impossible due to U.S sanctions.
I was saying just the other day in another thread here that 5nm would be cracked by next year then it's a 5 or so year catch up to the final hurdles.
The optimist in me thinks 2 or 3 years before they crack 3nm and another 2 or 3 for 2nm. 6 years and they'll be on top with a manufacturing scale that is impossible for anyone else to replicate to be competitive with what they can produce.
In fairness they're still using overseas lithography machines that are increasingly restricted. They're going to need their own, and their own home-cooked versions, while really good, are currently at 28nm (A month ago it was 90nm so it's not as far behind as you might think).
That's the only reason I think there's going to be a gap. If they had their own machines already I'd be saying 2 years until 2nm.
I'm a bit more cautious given they're using an entirely novel process. Once you get below 10nm things start getting difficult.
On the other hand they've gone from nothing to 10 years behind state of the art in 3 years so...