Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and ZTE Corp (中興) “cannot be trusted,” US Attorney General William Barr said in a letter released on Thursday, labeling the Chinese firms a security threat as he backed a proposal to bar rural wireless carriers from tapping an US$8.5 billion government fund to purchase equipment or services from the companies.
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is to vote on Friday next week on a proposal requiring the carriers to remove and replace equipment from the companies.
Barr said in a letter to the commission that “their own track record, as well as the practices of the Chinese government, demonstrate that Huawei and ZTE cannot be trusted.”
“We should not signal that Huawei and ZTE are anything other than a threat to our collective security, for that is exactly what they, through their actions, have shown themselves to be,” he said.
Huawei and ZTE did not immediately comment.
Barr said that US federal prosecutors have charged Huawei with breaches of the US embargo on Iran, bank fraud, obstruction of justice and trade secret theft.
ZTE in 2017 pleaded guilty to illegally sending approximately US$32 million of US goods to Iran.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said that the commission “cannot ignore the risk that the Chinese government will seek to exploit network vulnerabilities in order to engage in espionage, insert malware and viruses, and otherwise compromise our critical communications networks.”
The move is the latest action aimed at barring US companies from purchasing Huawei and ZTE equipment.
Huawei last week said that “in 30 years of business, Huawei has never had a major security-related incident in the 170 countries where we operate.”
The US government added Huawei to its economic blacklist in May, saying the Chinese company was involved in activities contrary to US national security.
Washington has pressed other nations not to grant Huawei access to 5G networks and alleged Huawei’s equipment could be used by Beijing for spying, which the Chinese company has repeatedly denied.
Several European nations have not agreed to bar Huawei, despite US pressure.
US President Donald Trump in May signed a long-awaited executive order declaring a national emergency and barring US companies from using telecommunications equipment made by companies posing a national security risk.
The order directed the US Department of Commerce to draw up an enforcement plan by the middle of last month.
The department has yet to publish a plan.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is