In This Story
The U.S. is continuing its efforts to curb China’s advanced chipmaking ambitions with new trade restrictions.
The Department of Commerce introduced more restrictions on the sale of high-bandwidth memory and chipmaking tools to China, including tools produced by U.S. companies abroad. The new rules include controls on 24 types of semiconductor manufacturing equipment, as well as on three types of software tools that can be used to develop or produce chips, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) said.
Additionally, another 140 unnamed Chinese entities — including semiconductor fabs, tool companies, and investment firms — accused of working on behalf of the Chinese government were added to the U.S. trade blacklist. The trade restrictions “will restrict the PRC’s ability to produce technologies key to its military modernization or repression of human rights,” the BIS said in a statement.
The updated rules have “two primary objectives,” according to the BIS: slowing China’s advanced AI developments that have “the potential to change the future of warfare” and “impairing” China’s development of its chip ecosystem.
“This action builds on BIS’s laser-focused work, undertaken over the past few years, to impose strategic controls that have hindered the PRC’s ability to produce advanced semiconductors and AI capabilities directly impacting U.S. national security,” Alan Estevez, undersecretary of commerce for industry and security, said in a statement. “We are constantly talking to our allies and partners as well as reassessing and updating our controls.”
U.S. attempts to slow China’s advanced chipmaking progress have reportedly stalled Huawei, which is based in the country and was added to the Entity List in 2019 after the U.S. government determined it had “been involved in activities contrary to the national security or foreign policy interests of the United States.”
In November, Bloomberg reported that the Chinese tech giant was designing its next two Ascend processors with the years-old 7-nanometer process. Huawei is unable to get extreme ultraviolet lithography machines from the Netherlands-based ASML (ASML+1.95%), which are subject to U.S.-led export controls.