China's Domestic 7nm Gaming GPU Should Arrive in 2025

MetaX GPUs
(Image credit: MetaX)

According to various reports, Chinese graphics accelerator technology firm MetaX Tech locally referred to as 沐曦 (mu xi), will have a gaming GPU ready for the domestic market by 2025. During a recent media interview, Dr. Yang Jian, co-founder, CTO, and chief software architect of the firm, reportedly shared the MetaX GPU roadmap, including some details of its high-performance GPUs ready to face foreign rivals.

Apparently, MetaX is currently enjoying excellent progress in terms of both financial backing and development. Earlier this year, its heterogeneous 7nm GPU was taped out, ready for manufacturing. Moreover, the manufacturing of this product is said to be starting “soon.” Its second flagship GPU for scientific computing, AI inference, and data center is now at the final stages of R&D, with plans to mass produce it in 2024.

However, none of those products fulfill MetaX’s goal of being a Chinese producer of high-performance GPUs that compete entirely with foreign flagship products. According to Dr. Yang, such a product is necessary as China’s GPU market accounts for 40% of the world’s consumption.

Unlike some other Chinese GPUs, the MetaX products reportedly wield a “self-developed core IP from scratch, and independently designed GPU architecture and instruction set.” This philosophy contrasts with Innosilicon, whose highly capable and efficient Fantasy GPUs were recently confirmed to be powered by Imagination Technologies (PowerVR) technology.

To seize the opportunity of being a leading Chinese GPU pioneer, the next step for MetaX will be to finish the development of a complete all-round GPU that will not just speed GPU computing calculations, or AI, or scientific computing, but make the big step into graphics rendering acceleration. Chinese tech site MyDrivers understood a segment of the interview with Dr. Yang Jian to mean that, by 2025, MetaX will have a fully capable gaming GPU ready. According to the MetaX website, we think the gaming GPU line will carry the “MXG” moniker.

(Image credit: MetaX)

MetaX 'Ex-AMD' Engineers vs Moore Threads 'Ex-Nvidia' Engineers

Last week UDN reported that the MetaX engineer team primarily consists of engineers who have previously worked at AMD. The same source asserts that China’s Moore Threads GPU development work is spearheaded mainly by ex-Nvidia engineers. Other Chinese firms with GPUs in development include the aforementioned Innosilicon and Zhaoxin with its GlenFly GPUs.

Increasing tech sanctions on China look likely due to high-tech weaponry concerns in the coming months, so the above development plans look sensible for replacing foreign GPUs, which may become scarce. While the worldwide GPU market is looking precipitous at the time of writing, we hope there may be a plentiful supply of Chinese home-grown GPUs by the time of the following GPU crunch (if it happens) to cushion any shortages.

Mark Tyson
News Editor

Mark Tyson is a news editor at Tom's Hardware. He enjoys covering the full breadth of PC tech; from business and semiconductor design to products approaching the edge of reason.

  • thisisaname
    I wonder if battlemage will be out by then.
    Reply
  • RedBear87
    Oh, those might become handy if Biden, before leaving office, will ban even the export of RTX gaming GPUs after banning the sales of A100 and H100 accelerators; I guess they'll be good to play Fortnite in an internet cafe or something like that.
    Reply
  • brandonjclark
    I wonder if they stole the technology or if it's homegrown.
    Reply
  • Nikolay Mihaylov
    Good luck with the drivers!
    Reply
  • thisisaname
    brandonjclark said:
    I wonder if they stole the technology or if it's homegrown.

    A hard one to answer, but giving how many other companies produce GPU's are there many other ways to make a GPU without standing on their shoulders?

    Edit: They could also designed it so they are not infringing someone else patents, guess as someone on YouTube would say "tell will tell"
    Reply
  • krumholzmax
    simple answer - not possible not technology nobody will sell Sanction Working - like when whey buy PS3 to XBOX to do whey "Super" Computer
    Reply
  • gg83
    "self-developed core IP from scratch, and independently designed GPU architecture and instruction set.” if Intel is struggling with gpus, metaX must have the best engineering in the world.
    Reply
  • atomicWAR
    Even if it ran like a champ with great drivers I wouldn't trust it to not spy on me or my data. That said reality check: drivers...always the bad apple for gpu hardware.
    Reply
  • gg83
    krumholzmax said:
    simple answer - not possible not technology nobody will sell Sanction Working - like when whey buy PS3 to XBOX to do whey "Super" Computer
    I'm confused. That doesn't sound very simple.
    Reply
  • hasten
    gg83 said:
    I'm confused. That doesn't sound very simple.
    I think its a reference to DPRK running PS3s in unison to create a "super computer" many years ago. Therefore how could heavily sanctioned states produce their own software and hardware IP?

    While i agree with the suggestion its a quite old example. And in chinese terms 7nm lithography means?
    Reply