Zhao Weiguo, chairman for the state-backed technology conglomerateis said he is writting cheques totally $70 billion to build IC manufacturing sites in Wuhan, Chengdu and Nanjing.

Tsinghua Unigroup is assisting subsidiary Yangtze River Storage Technology to establish a new memory plant in Wuhan. Construction of the plant, which will cover an area of about 13 hectares, kicked off recently.

Total investment in Yangtze River Storage Tech's new plant in Wuhan is estimated at $24 billion. The facility will be dedicated to producing 3D NAND flash memory with volume production slated for 2018.

Tsinghua Unigroup will start building work on two plants in Chengu and Nanjing this year. Total investment in the two sites is estimated at US$46 billion, Zhao said.

It is starting to look like Tsinghua Unigroup wants to push into the logic IC manufacturing sector in addition to memory production.