Türkiye Gears Up to Kick Off Mass Production of Domestic Chips

(MENAFN) Türkiye is preparing to kick off large-scale manufacturing of domestically designed chips, aiming to cut reliance on foreign technology amid escalating global tech tensions.

Ali Baran, CEO of Turkish chip design company Yongatek Microelectronics, told media the firm has been building its capacity since 2014 to establish Türkiye as a national center for chip design and production.

Baran disclosed that Yongatek is collaborating with Turkish appliance leader Beko to create microcontrollers (MCUs) for home appliances, backed by Türkiye’s HIT-30 funding program. He stated that the research and development phase for the microcontroller project is nearly finished, with prototypes set to enter production by the end of the year and mass production scheduled to start next year.

Highlighting the scale, Baran said, “Beko alone will have an annual usage of these MCUs of 30 million and in the sectors of defense, robotics, and IoT, the number can reach up to 50 million.”

The CEO pointed out the growing challenges amid the ongoing US-China tech and chip trade war, warning that the dominance of these two countries threatens global efforts to produce chips independently.

“Chip manufacturing used to be designed in Silicon Valley but made in Asia-Pacific, and that chipmaking was a less critical and labor-intensive process, but in the last few decades, the chip business has become quite significant, as we saw a chip crisis during the pandemic,” he explained.

Baran also noted that major US companies such as Nvidia, Qualcomm, Broadcom, and Apple are shifting chip production back to the US, potentially escalating the “chip war” if fully realized.

Looking ahead, Baran stressed the strategic importance of chips: “Chips will replace oil as the defining resource of this century, and that artificial intelligence (AI) will be the arena.”

He added, “The firms that can break the game are in China and the Middle East. The first countries to produce advanced AI chips will get ahead (of) others and this will be a significant competition for the next 50 years if not 100.”

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