The US government is imposing strengthened export restrictions on Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) that bar it from supplying China with sophisticated chips used to develop artificial intelligence (AI), Reuters reports, citing a source familiar with the matter.
The clampdown follows the discovery of a TSMC chip in a Huawei AI processor in October. The Chinese tech giant is on Washington’s restricted trade list due to claims that it is involved in cyber espionage. Huawei strenuously denies the US allegations.
It is not understood how the chip ended up on Huawei’s Ascend 910B, and the clampdown will reportedly allow the US to investigate whether other companies were diverting their own legally-obtained TSMC chips to Huawei for its AI processor. Suppliers would have first had to obtain a licence to ship goods or technology to the company – a request that would likely have been denied.
The new restrictions will impact chips of 7 nanometers or below intended for makers of AI and graphics processing units in China. According to Reuters, “many more companies” will be barred from buying the chips.
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Taiwan officials told Reuters that “TSMC has had regular discussions with the government on export control issues and has made it clear that it will comply with domestic and international regulations.”
The US and China are currently engaged in a tech war, or rivalry over which country will lead the world in AI development.
Last month, the US government published a memo claiming that losing its technological edge would “not only greatly harm American national security, but it would also undermine United States foreign policy objectives.”
Washington has been blocking the flow of semiconductors to China since the start of this year, spurring Beijing’s investments in the research and development of advanced chips. The prominent Chinese strategist Lu Yongxiang recently predicted that China would overtake the US in military and advanced technology by 2035.
