The outfit issued a statement denying reports that it had collapsed and closed its doors but did not rule out it could happen.

"Development of national GPU has not yet fully met the company’s expectations and is facing certain market adjustment pressures," the statement reads, adding that it has taken no steps to wind up "so far."

National GPU is part of China’s policy of silicon self-sufficiency, enacted amid US export bans that prevent Chinese entities from legally acquiring the most potent accelerators from companies like Nvidia and AMD.

Xiangdixian Computing Technology (XCT) has already produced a quartet of modest GPUs – two for desktops and one for workstations. On 20 August, the company described its flagship Tianjun GPU silicon as having "successfully achieved R&D and mass production goals" for applications such as "cloud desktops, CAD/CAE, metaverses, and digital twins."

However, the company has not yet made strides in AI – a technology that Beijing has repeatedly stated is essential to economic growth and national security.

XCT’s announcement states that it has retained the core R&D and operations staff that management feels are necessary to continue work on GPUs. The firm running around trying to get finance.

Meanwhile, Huawei has developed vastly inferior accelerators to Nvidia’s H100 GPUs, and apparently, seven other Chinese developers of AI-centric silicon which are also not doing that well.

China has poured billions into semiconductor makers, which is making some wonder if the money was spent making senior management fat rather than turning out leading-edge silicon to power local industry or sell to the world. If it is a corruption problem, executives might be concerned if the Chinese government starts asking questions about how the money was spent. The Chinese have a very aggressive way of dealing with corruption, which many tech industry executives would not like.