Major players in the Chinese chip industry have warned domestic firms against buying US-made chips, describing them as “no longer safe,” Reuters reports. The warning is the latest salvo in the Sino-US tech war, which is expected to ramp up further when President-elect Donald Trump takes office next month.
Four of the mainland’s top semiconductor industry associations issued similar statements after the US announced its third crackdown on Chinese tech companies on Monday. Washington’s latest move effectively bars US suppliers from exporting goods used to make integrated circuits and advanced memory chips to 140 Chinese companies.
The associations did not elaborate on why US chips may be unsafe. One US trade group, the Semiconductor Industry Association, slammed their claims as unhelpful and “simply inaccurate.”
It added that “export controls should be narrow and targeted to meet specific national security objectives” and said “we encourage both governments to avoid further escalation.”
[See more: China will ‘overtake the US in hi-tech and military manufacturing in a decade’]
The Chinese warning could affect U.S. chipmaking giants such as Nvidia, AMD, and Intel, which have managed to keep selling products in the Chinese market in spite of the ever-tightening export controls.
The US and China are currently engaged in a rivalry over which country will lead the world in AI development.
In October, the US government published a memo acknowledging that losing its technological edge would “undermine United States foreign policy objectives.”
Washington has been blocking the flow of semiconductors to China since the start of this year, spurring Beijing to invest heavily in the research and development of advanced chips in an effort to achieve self-sufficiency.
