"The Biden administration is preparing new export controls on semiconductors and the machines to make them, the latest push in its effort to deny China the ability to make the fastest, most cutting-edge circuitry possible, according to people familiar with the situation.
The administration in recent weeks has already placed new restrictions on some U.S. exports of chips used for artificial-intelligence calculations and manufacturing equipment used to make some of the most powerful number-crunching chips.
But more export curbs are under consideration, including ones targeting high-end memory-chip manufacturing capabilities and advanced components that go into some of the most cutting-edge chip-making tools, according to the people familiar with the matter. Advanced quantum computing is another target under discussion, they said.
U.S. officials also have been considering adding more Chinese technology companies to the Commerce Department's entity list, which bans exports to them without a license, The Wall Street Journal has previously reported.
The administration has been trying to line up key allies behind the effort, so that the U.S. isn't the only country putting restrictions in place, the people said.
The administration's actions could be announced as early as this week, one of the people said. Some details of the moves were previously reported by Reuters and the New York Times.
Joint export controls by the U.S., Japan, South Korea and European countries could significantly limit China's chip industry because those countries hold a near-monopoly over production and sales of key equipment and software needed to make the most-advanced chips.
The U.S. has already engaged in diplomatic efforts to restrict Chinese access to machinery, including urging the Dutch government to block sales of critical equipment by ASML Holding NV.
The U.S. has long sought to limit the development of China's semiconductor industry by placing companies on the Commerce Department's export blacklist, including telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co. and its largest chip maker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. The clampdown intensified amid the trade wars of the Trump administration, and the Biden administration has largely picked up where its predecessor left off.
The semiconductor industry was born in the U.S. but has shifted outside of the country in recent decades, mostly to Taiwan, South Korea and China, a state of affairs U.S. officials and legislators see as a worrying national-security vulnerability. Advanced chips are increasingly a pillar of geopolitical power, underpinning both military systems and data-processing capabilities that drive modern economies.
As it places more restrictions on China, the Commerce Department is preparing to roll out tax breaks, factory-building grants and research funding to try to bring more of the semiconductor industry back to the U.S. The funding, worth nearly $77 billion in total, was passed by Congress in July and signed by President Biden in August.
Many of the expected actions the Biden administration is set to announce are likely to expand restrictions that it already has taken against individual companies, by making them apply industrywide,according to one of the people familiar with the situation.
For example, Nvidia Corp. disclosed in August that it could lose as much as $400 million in quarterly sales after the U.S. imposed new licensing requirements on shipments of some of its most advanced chips to China. The U.S. imposed the requirement to address the risk that the products could reach the hands of military users, Nvidia said." [1]
1.U.S. News: U.S. Seeks to Further Curb High-End Chip Exports to China
Fitch, Asa; McKinnon, John D.
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 04 Oct 2022: A.6.
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