(Yicai) Dec. 6 -- The World Integrated Circuit Association has predicted that China will be once more the biggest and fastest-growing IC market this year.

The scale of the Chinese mainland's IC market will likely expand 20 percent to USD186.5 billion this year from the previous one, accounting for 30 percent of the global total, according to a report the WICA released at the Global Semiconductor Market Summit yesterday. The US ranked second with a growth rate of 18 percent.

The international semiconductor market bottomed out and rebounded this year, thanks to the spike in demand from the artificial intelligence and high-efficiency computation fields. Its size will probably jump 17 percent to USD620.2 billion this year from the one before, compared with a decline of 8.5 percent in 2023, the report also showed.

Storage and logical chips are the ones most in need this year, as their demand likely surged 61 percent and 21 percent, respectively, from a year ago, according to the report. Meanwhile, demand for discrete devices, photoelectric devices, sensors, and analog chips is expected to fall between 2 percent and 10 percent.

The computation and communication sectors will probably have the highest increase in IC applications, up 18.4 percent and 17.9 percent, respectively, the WICA predicted. The automotive industry ranked third with 16.7 percent. Government procurement will be the only declining sector, with a drop of 20 percent.

Two trends are expected to emerge in the semiconductor industry: AI and autonomous driving. Meanwhile, the development of high-capacity, high-speed storage, and third-generation semiconductor industries will accelerate, the WICA said.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Futura Costaglione