U.S. Curbs Advanced Chip Sales To China

"The U.S. introduced its latest restrictions on transferring advanced chips to China, but the delay in cutting off chips useful in artificial intelligence showed how the Biden administration has struggled to stall Beijing's advances.

The rules, the fourth attempt in three years by U.S. policymakers to curb China's access to cutting-edge semiconductor technology, limited the sale of memory chips that power AI applications and narrowed the suite of chip-making tools available to China. The Commerce Department also announced the addition of 140 Chinese companies and other entities to its trade blacklist.

Industry analysts said a monthslong pause between the drafting of the rules and their release Monday allowed Chinese entities to stock up on semiconductors and machines they knew were likely to be restricted.

Previous curbs by the U.S. and its allies on chip technology have led to Chinese entities pursuing workarounds to get their hands on banned processors and computing power. In addition, the restrictions were porous, allowing Chinese companies to legally purchase some chips and chip-making equipment from the U.S. and allies such as South Korea, Japan and the Netherlands.

At the same time, the U.S. curbs are credited with constraining the ability of Huawei, a Chinese company widely seen as the country's national champion in semiconductors and other high-tech areas, to mass-produce its high-end chips.

The latest export regulations prevent makers of advanced memory chips, referred to as high-bandwidth memory (HBM), from shipping their products to China without permission from the Commerce Department. Such chips work in tandem with AI processors in the computations behind generative AI systems. There are three major manufacturers of HBM: SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics of South Korea and U.S.-based Micron Technology.

U.S. officials said the controls were aimed at squeezing China's ability to indigenously produce technologies critical to advanced weaponry and artificial intelligence. "These new rules are groundbreaking and sweeping," Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said Sunday.

The rules are driving a rift between the chip-making ecosystems of the two countries. U.S. chip toolmakers are seeking to cut Chinese companies and certain components out of their direct supply chain, while Washington's export controls have galvanized China's desire to build its own self-sufficient chip industry.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said on Nov. 25 that the U.S. was "overstretching the concept of national security, abusing export control measures and making malicious attempts to block and suppress China."

While the newest controls may hamper China's semiconductor ambitions, they left loopholes that Huawei and Chinese companies could exploit, said Gregory Allen, the director at the Wadhwani AI Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Certain older versions of high-bandwidth memory chips may remain available to Chinese customers, and not every semiconductor manufacturing facility linked to Huawei was included on the trade blacklist, Allen said.

People familiar with the drafting of the rules released Monday said the bulk of the content had been composed by the middle of this year and was known to many in the industry. The release was delayed owing to negotiations with U.S. allies and chip-equipment companies, and this gave China a chance to build stockpiles, they said." [1]

1. U.S. News: U.S. Curbs Advanced Chip Sales To China. Lin, Liza; Strobel, Warren P.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 03 Dec 2024: A.3.