Billionaire aims to create China's first chip giant, touts US$30b arsenal

Beijing

ZHAO Weiguo wants to create China's first giant in the global semiconductor industry and has a US$30 billion investment plan to do it.

The billionaire president of Tsinghua Unigroup Ltd is focusing his aspirations on memory chips and remains undeterred even as overseas regulatory hurdles threaten to stymie some of his deals. Raising funds from local governments, investors and private equity will fill his arsenal to take on foreign giants such as Samsung Electronics Co.

"Capital is the most loyal and cruel thing in the world," Mr Zhao said in an interview in Beijing. "It chases after you when you can make money and abandons you as soon as you cannot."

Memory for devices spanning mobile phones and computers, an area led by Samsung, SK Hynix Inc and Micron Technology Inc, could generate US$20 billion of sales for Tsinghua as the busines…