The apparent driver here isn’t about AMD wanting to get into the FPGA business. The real motivation appears to be a combination of platforms and programmable chiplets. There are two problems that programmable chips address https://semiengineering.com/amd-wants-an-fpga-company-too/
-SMIC is shipping 14nm finFETs, with a 7nm-like process in R&D.
-Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) recently entered the 3D NAND market with a 64-layer device. A 128-layer technology is in R&D.
-ChangXin Memory Technology (CXMT) is shipping its first product, a 19nm DRAM line.
-China is expanding into compound semis, including gallium nitride (GaN) and silicon carbide (SiC).
-China’s OSATs are developing more advanced packages.