Tsinghua arm readies to take on Qualcomm

Tsinghua Holdings Co Ltd, a technology conglomerate backed by Tsinghua University, plans to invest at least 30 billion yuan ($4.76 billion) in developing mobile chip technology, highlighting the company's ambition to challenge Qualcomm Inc's dominance in the country's chip market.

"To catch up with Qualcomm as soon as possible, we will pour 30 billion yuan, and probably even more, into the research and development of mobile chips in the next few years," Xu Jinghong, chairman of Tsinghua Holdings, told China Daily in an interview on Tuesday.

Tsinghua Holding said a certain proportion of the money will come from government funding and its partners. In February, its unit Tsinghua Unigroup Ltd said it has received 10 billion yuan from governments to invest in chip companies.