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The US has taken unprecedented steps to limit the sale of advanced computer chips to China, escalating efforts to contain Beijing’s tech and military ambitions.
The moves are designed to cut off supplies of critical technology to China that may be used across sectors including advanced computing and weapons manufacture.
The crackdown marks the most significant action by Washington against Beijing on technology exports in decades, escalating a trade battle between the world’s two most powerful economies.
After the export controls, Apple reportedly put on hold plans to use memory chips from China’s Yangtze Memory Technologies in its products. The Nikkei newspaper said Apple had planned to use the chips in iPhones sold in China.
On 7 October, the Biden administration imposed a sweeping set of export controls that included measures to cut China off from certain semiconductor chips and chip-making equipment.
Under the rules, US companies must cease supplying Chinese chipmakers with equipment that can produce relatively advanced chips unless they first obtain a licence.
The new regulations also add controls on some semiconductor production items and transactions for specific end-uses of some integrated circuits or chips. The US also wants to increase its export controls to include semiconductor products and software, technology, and other things used to develop and make integrated circuits. In a further restriction, US citizens and green-card holders will also be banned from working on certain technology for Chinese companies and entities.
The export curbs will include high-end computing chips, such as NVIDIA’s A100/H100 and Intel’s GPU (Ponte Vecchio), according to Brady Wang, associate director of Counterpoint research in Hong Kong. The rules, some of which go into effect immediately, build on restrictions sent in letters earlier this year to top toolmakers KLA, Lam Research and Applied Materials, requiring them to halt shipments of equipment to wholly Chinese-owned factories producing advanced logic chips.
