"Know ASML Secrets? China Desperate to Poach Tech Talent with Triple Salary Offer"

WSJ Reports on Chinese Companies' Talent Recruitment Drive
Bringing in Talent as Access to Semiconductor and AI Technologies Is Blocked
Huawei Offers Triple Salary to ASML Partners

Chinese companies are aggressively recruiting talent from global tech firms by offering huge salaries and other incentives. As Western countries block China’s access to advanced semiconductor and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, China is responding by acquiring talent. According to the US daily The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on the 26th (local time), Chinese companies are scrambling to recruit engineers from Silicon Valley in the US, Europe, and Taiwan.

The Chinese national flag is fluttering near a Huawei store in Shanghai, China. Photo by Reuters and Yonhap News.

Chinese telecommunications equipment company Huawei reportedly offered job transfers last fall through recruitment sites like LinkedIn to employees of the German optics company Zeiss, a partner of the Dutch semiconductor equipment maker ASML. Moreover, employees with sensitive know-how were offered salaries up to three times higher. Although no employees accepted the offers, German intelligence authorities, concerned about intellectual property infringement, launched an investigation. WSJ stated, "Chinese companies are establishing local startups to conceal their connections with China."

Concerns about talent recruitment attempts linked to China have also been raised among other European intelligence officials. Additionally, US intelligence agencies view talent acquisition as one of China’s strategies to become a technological powerhouse.

According to LinkedIn and other sources, Huawei has hired dozens of employees who worked in lithography equipment and optics at Western companies such as ASML since 2021. Also, Alibaba, China’s largest e-commerce company, is reportedly recruiting an AI team near Sunnyvale in Silicon Valley.

Taiwan, which is adjacent to China, is also strictly regulating to prevent talent outflow. Taiwanese authorities announced in September that they had filed complaints against eight Chinese tech companies attempting to illegally poach talent. Furthermore, from 2020 to July of this year, they investigated about 90 cases of talent poaching by China in fields such as semiconductors and electronics.

This talent competition is not unique to China. According to the Financial Times (FT), the French AI startup Mistral is establishing a branch in Silicon Valley to recruit talent. FT reports that one of Mistral’s three co-founders is considering working at the Silicon Valley branch, and the company is hiring AI scientists, engineers, sales staff, and administrative employees in the US.