In 1965, Chinese engineers forged their first integrated circuit, a half decade after Bob Noyce and Jack Kilby. However, Mao’s radicalism made it impossible to attract foreign investment or conduct serious science. The year after China produced its first integrated circuit, Mao plunged the country into the Cultural Revolution, arguing that expertise was a source of privilege that undermined socialist equality. Mao’s partisans waged war on the country’s educational system. Thousands of scientists and experts were sent to work as farmers in destitute villages.
