According to Digitimes, Intel has invested $500 million in 2015. This is on top of the $168 million invested last year and a separate US$1 billion investment in the Tsinghua Unigroup and a US$5.5 billion investment to upgrade its wafer foundry in Dalian.

Intel Capital has written cheques for $60 million investment in Hong Kong-based unmanned aerial vehicle manufacturer Yuneec and $67 million investment in eight China-based companies covering industries such as smart device equipment, robots and cloud computing service applications.

Intel recently announced investment in China-based Perfant Technology, a company that mainly focuses on developing artificial intelligence, machine vision, 3D modelling and virtual reality technologies. Perfant's 360-degree camera, Eyesir, is capable of being used for travel, aerial and virtual reality applications.

Perfant will launch a new product designed based on Intel's RealSense technology.

The move is interesting as it places Intel on the side of the Chinese government, which wants to encourage the country’s home grown businesses as the expense of big multinationals, like Intel. At the same time if they take off, Intel will have access to the technology and have a back door into those organisations.