China's Xiaomi takes a page from Apple with a $7 billion plan to make its own mobile chips

• Xiaomi boss Lei Jun said his company would start making its own mobile chips.
• He said his company was ready to spend billions of dollars on chip design over the next decade.
• It's an approach that its rival Apple largely popularized.

One of Apple's top rivals in China is taking a page out of its own book, again.

On Monday, Xiaomi's billionaire cofounder and CEO, Lei Jun, said that his company was implementing a 10-year plan to invest 50 billion yuan, roughly $7 billion, into chip design as it looks to make chips of its own for its smartphones. To date, it has relied on US firm Qualcomm and Taiwanese firm MediaTek for chips.

In a post to Chinese social media site Weibo, Lei said his company "made a major decision" back in 2021 to restart the process of developing its own silicon for smartphones after an initial effort in the previous decade faced setbacks.

Apple has largely popularized the so-called system-on-a-chip (SoC) approach, spending the past 15 years powering products like iPhones and Macs with its own silicon, which company executives believe gives their products an edge.

Lei also said on Weibo that the first chip from its new mobile efforts, Xring 01, would be unveiled on May 22.

"Chips are the underlying core track for Xiaomi to break through hardcore technology, and we will definitely go all out," Lei wrote, while acknowledging that his company had previously suspended its work on SoC research and development.

The move comes as Chinese companies increasingly seek to develop their own know-how and expertise in key technologies.

Lei said Xiaomi would chase "the latest process technology" as part of its ambitions for its renewed work on mobile chips. Chips for the Xring 01 will be developed using 3 3-nanometer process, Lei said, an advanced way of producing some of the most powerful chips.

He said that at least a decade of fresh investment would be needed, given "the difficulty of chip manufacturing."

"Xiaomi has always had a 'chip dream' because, in order to become a great hardcore technology company, chips are a peak that must be climbed and a tough battle that cannot be avoided," he wrote.

It's not the first time Xiaomi has looked to emulate a rival like Apple.

The Chinese firm, known primarily for selling smartphones, unveiled its first electric vehicle last year, a month after Apple ditched its multi-year effort to release its own EV.