Taiwanese investigators said Thursday they have raided 16 Chinese-funded companies suspected of illegally poaching high-tech talent to steal secrets from the island’s chip industry.
Taiwan is a global powerhouse in semiconductor manufacturing, with more than half of the world’s chips and nearly all of the high-end ones made there.
China is racing to develop the advanced chips used to power artificial intelligence systems, as it faces export restrictions imposed by the United States.
Hundreds of officials searched 70 locations across the island and questioned 120 people from July 15 to August 6, the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau said.
The probe is still underway and no charges have been filed, a bureau investigator surnamed Gu told AFP, adding there were “around 25 to 30” such investigations every year.
Intelligence shared by the bureau indicated “several illegal mainland-funded enterprises have been stealing Taiwan’s high-tech secrets through illegal poaching”, said the Hsinchu District Prosecutors Office, which was involved in the raids.
The companies targeted had “used diverse and highly harmful infiltration methods”, it said.
Among the firms searched were Goertek, a major Apple supplier, and US-listed VNET Group.
Taiwan has long accused China of carrying out espionage activities on the island, which Beijing claims is part of its territory and has threatened to seize by force.
Taiwan put Chinese tech giant Huawei and chip titan SMIC on an export blacklist this year, further squeezing Beijing’s access to the technology needed to build the most advanced chips.
Local companies wanting to ship high-tech products to Huawei, SMIC or any other entity on the list will have to obtain permission from Taiwan’s government.
The Investigation Bureau said in March that SMIC and other Chinese companies were being probed on suspicion of illegal talent poaching.
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© Agence France-Presse
