US Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr on Tuesday called for new steps to ensure Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and ZTE Corp (中興) equipment is barred from US telecommunications networks and ensure no electronic devices produced with forced labor enter the US.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) last year adopted rules requiring US telecoms to remove and replace equipment produced by Huawei or ZTE if purchased using an US$8.3 billion government fund, but carriers could still purchase equipment from the Chinese firms with private funds.
Carr called for closing the “glaring loophole.”
Photo: Bloomberg
“It makes no sense to allow that exact same equipment to get purchased and inserted into our communication network as long as federal dollars are not involved,” he said.
Huawei said in a statement that “extending the FCC’s evaluation and approval process to prohibit equipment that is already accredited by the FCC is misguided and costly to American companies.”
It said that blocking equipment based on where it was assembled is “discriminatory, and will do nothing to protect the integrity of US communications networks or supply chains.”
Carr also said that the FCC could do more to address China’s abuses of ethnic and religious minorities, especially against Muslim Uighurs in Xinjiang.
The commission’s equipment authorization rules should be updated to require companies that procure devices or components from Xinjiang “meet a heightened burden to ensure that their supply chain does not rely on any forced labor,” Carr said.
Acting FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel “has long advocated for reforming the equipment authorization process to better ensure security in new network devices and is pleased to see growing support for this idea,” a commission spokesman said, adding that “the FCC is already working on addressing many of the issues Commissioner Carr spoke about.”
The FCC earlier last month designated five Chinese companies as threats to national security under a 2019 law aimed at protecting US communications networks: Huawei and ZTE, as well as Hytera Communications Corp (海能達通信), Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co (杭州海康威視數字技術) and Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co (浙江大華技術).
The FCC in December last year finalized rules requiring carriers with ZTE or Huawei equipment to “rip and replace” that equipment.
US lawmakers have approved US$1.9 billion to fund replacements.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts