After leaving HiSilicon's semiconductor R&D center, Lu Zhou did not get into the car right away. Instead, he took his driver and bodyguard with him and strolled through the industrial park along the pedestrian walkway beside the six-lane road.
Looking at the buildings on both sides, Lu Zhou suddenly spoke.
"Wang Peng."
Wang Peng asked, "What is it?"
Lu Zhou smiled. "Nothing. I was just asking. We've walked around here for a while now, so tell me—what do you think?"
Hearing the question, Wang Peng pondered for a moment before answering.
"It's impressive."
Lu Zhou glanced at him in surprise.
"That's all? It just feels impressive?"
"There are other things too, but I'm not very good at putting them into words." Looking at the nearest enormous, square-shaped semiconductor plant, Wang Peng sighed. "Maybe... it also feels a little unexpected."
In this age of economic globalization, every country had its own place in the global industrial chain, along with fields it excelled in and core competitive strengths. But being able to produce something and being willing to produce it were ultimately two entirely different things.
Intel could move its factories from the United States to Saigon because labor costs in the United States were too high. That was not because American manufacturing had declined to the point where it could no longer make chips; it was simply a choice made for cost reasons.
If there were truly a need, those overseas production capacities could return to North America in all sorts of ways at any time. Hua Nation, however, did not have that option.
Semiconductors had always been a sore spot for Hua Nation's electronics industry. No matter how strong its compilation and design capabilities became, chip manufacturing—the very upstream end of the electronics industry chain—remained an unavoidable boulder in the