(Image credit: Getty Images / NurPhoto) China exported 179.44 billion integrated circuits worth $177.28 billion in the first six months of 2026, an increase of more than 96% year on year by value, according to data released by the country's General Administration of Customs and reported by the South China Morning Post . The figures are Beijing's own customs numbers, presented at a state press briefing as part of a broader account of China's trade performance, and they made semiconductors one of the main contributors to the country's double-digit export growth over the period. Go deeper with TH Premium: Taiwan, trade, and tariffs The customs administration attributed the surge to global demand for AI hardware, but the underlying numbers point more towards a worldwide memory price boom that has inflated the value of the commodity-grade chips that China exports in volume.…