The U.S.-China trade war and the threat that Chinese firms could be cut off from using American technology is boosting China's push for its own semiconductor industry.

"Huge amounts of capital and talent are going to be thrown at building self-reliance and establishing a kind of parallel ecosystem here without dependence on U.S. chips, operating systems," said Ben Harburg, managing partner of MSA Capital, a Beijing-based venture capital firm.

"The rationale is that this moment created demand. Previously, it didn't have demand for those Chinese chips," Harburg told CNBC Monday at the World Economic Forum in Dalian, China.

While there was government money in the past to back such businesses, the understanding was that there were always U.S. chips to fall back on.

"That has changed now where there was a moment of complete desperation where there wasn't an alternative to U.S. chips," said Harburg, who added that MSA Capital is now investing more in core technologies like chips, core artificial intelligence and companies that aren't dependent on U.S. chips.