Chips and Code: China's Semiconductor and Software Agenda in the 15th FYP
No sector is more loaded in China’s 15th Five-Year Plan than semiconductors and software. The combination is deliberate: chips without the software to design and program them are limited, and software without the chips to run it at scale is equally constrained. The plan treats them as a single self-reliance problem.
On the hardware side, the FYP targets three categories: mature-node chips (the volume production that Chinese fabs can already partially supply), advanced chips (where China remains substantially behind the leading edge), and optoelectronic chips (a category that intersects with AI hardware, sensors, and communications). The plan does not pretend the advanced chip gap is already closed. It treats closure as an objective requiring sustained investment and policy support.
On the software side, the plan calls for self-reliance in three areas: basic software (operating systems, databases), industrial software (the engineering and design tools that run manufacturing), and chip design and production software (EDA tools and the like). This last category has been directly targeted by US export controls, and it represents one of China’s most acute technological vulnerabilities. The firms that produce leading EDA tools are predominantly American, and their software sits at the foundation of every advanced chip design process.
The plan’s response is to build domestic alternatives across all three software categories, using state support to fund development and state procurement to create early markets. This is the same industrial policy playbook applied to previous strategic sectors.
Whether it works depends partly on the quality of the engineering talent China can mobilize and partly on whether US controls remain effective as Chinese firms iterate around them.