US to Impose New Limits on China’s Access to Advanced Chips
The upcoming restrictions, anticipated to be revealed on Monday, aim to hinder China’s capacity to develop extensive and potent AI models.
THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION is anticipated to reveal an extensive array of actions on Monday aimed at limiting China’s capacity to advance in artificial intelligence, sources familiar with the situation indicated. The regulations might involve penalizing numerous Chinese firms that manufacture semiconductor production equipment, alongside imposing limitations on several chip fabrication facilities, some of which are linked to the Chinese technology behemoth Huawei.
The US Department of Commerce has also considered implementing restrictions on the sale of high-bandwidth memory, or HBM, a sophisticated type of 3D-stacked computer memory that is frequently utilized in high-performance GPUs and specialized AI chips. Bloomberg had earlier reported that the Biden administration was looking into restricting China’s access to HBM chips.
Overall, the Biden administration may potentially include approximately 200 Chinese companies on an entity list managed by the Bureau of Industry and Security—a division of the Commerce Department—which would mandate that other businesses obtain special permits to provide them with software or goods from the U.S. The US government has been negotiating the new initiatives with its allies and semiconductor industry representatives for months, and the specific details of what will be revealed on Monday were still undecided earlier this week.
A representative from the Commerce department chose not to provide a comment. Huawei did not quickly respond to a request for comment.
On Friday, Reuters disclosed that the US Chamber of Commerce, a major lobbying organization for American enterprises, cautioned its members in an email last week about an imminent new set of export restrictions aimed at China, set to come “before the Thanksgiving break,” although that schedule now seems to have been delayed by several days.
“China strongly disagrees with the US’s excessive interpretation of national security, misusing export control strategies and deliberately trying to hinder and undermine China,” stated Mao Ning, a representative for China’s foreign ministry, during a scheduled press conference earlier this week regarding the expected controls.
The restrictions on China’s access to high-bandwidth memory appear designed to hinder the nation’s attempts to create homegrown chips that can train extremely large and powerful AI models. The upcoming restrictions are anticipated to prevent access to HMB3, one individual mentioned, the latest and most sophisticated iteration of the technology, while also placing certain limits on availability of the earlier version, referred to as HMB2.
For years, the US government has been enforcing comparable export controls on China to curb its capacity to produce advanced silicon, yet these measures seemingly didn’t prevent Huawei from creating competitive chips for training extensive AI models.
The Chinese technology behemoth, which faced significant setbacks due to US sanctions five years back, dispatched samples of its newest AI training chip, named Ascend, to clients this September, as reported by the South China Morning Post. Firms evaluating Ascend reportedly consist of ByteDance, the Chinese parent company of TikTok, which is believed to be developing a significant model mainly utilizing Ascend. Baidu, known for its top search engine in China and its advancements in autonomous driving technology, has recently ordered Huawei’s chips as it pivots away from relying on US chipmaker Nvidia, as reported by Reuters. (Nvidia chose not to provide any comments.)
Export limitations targeting China’s AI industry started during the first Trump administration. In 2019, various emerging Chinese AI companies were placed on the entity list, signifying that US businesses, such as chip manufacturers like Nvidia, would need to obtain a special license to engage in transactions with them. This was succeeded by limitations on selling chips utilizing US technology to Huawei, China’s major telecommunications company and a prominent smartphone maker.
In October 2022, the Biden administration tightened restrictions on exports to China of advanced GPU chips, including those produced by Nvidia, in an effort to restrict any Chinese firm’s capacity to develop the most powerful AI models. A year later, the regulations were strengthened to eliminate loopholes that still permitted Chinese companies to access certain advanced chips.
Assessing the effects of US chip sanctions can be challenging, and some analysts wonder if the restrictions are prompting China to accelerate its own chipmaking advancements, thereby diminishing its dependence on American firms.
In late 2023, Huawei introduced the Mate 60, a smartphone equipped with a sophisticated chip from the Chinese manufacturer SMIC. The declaration created a buzz in Washington, as it implied that SMIC had significantly improved its manufacturing methods. (Additional analysis showed that Huawei and SMIC continued to depend on overseas suppliers.)
However, a report released this week by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank based in Washington, DC, claimed that the Chinese government had already started increasing investment in domestic chip production prior to the US government tightening restrictions on the country’s access to advanced semiconductors. It also highlighted that China has advanced more significantly in areas not limited by export controls, like solar cell and electric vehicle production.
