US President Joe Biden’s administration next month plans to broaden curbs on US shipments to China of semiconductors used for artificial intelligence (AI) and chipmaking tools, several people familiar with the matter said.
The US Department of Commerce intends to publish new regulations based on restrictions communicated in letters earlier this year to three US companies — KLA Corp, Lam Research Corp and Applied Materials Inc, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
The plan for new rules has not been previously reported.
Photo: Tyrone Siu, Reuters
The letters, which the companies publicly acknowledged, forbade them from exporting chipmaking equipment to Chinese factories that produce advanced semiconductors with sub-14 nanometer processes unless the sellers obtain commerce department licenses.
The rules would also codify restrictions in commerce department letters sent last month to Nvidia Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) instructing them to halt shipments of several AI computing chips to China unless they obtain licenses.
Some of the sources said the regulations would likely include additional actions against China. The restrictions could also be changed and the rules published later than expected.
So-called “is informed” letters allow the department to bypass lengthy rule-writing processes to put controls in place quickly, but the letters only apply to the companies that receive them.
Turning the letters into rules would broaden their reach and could subject other US companies producing similar technology to the restrictions. The regulations could potentially apply to companies trying to challenge Nvidia and AMD’s dominance in AI chips.
Intel Corp and start-ups like Cerebras Systems Inc are targeting the same advanced computing markets. Intel said it is closely monitoring the situation, while Cerebras declined to comment.
One source said that the rules could also impose license requirements on shipments to China of products that contain the targeted chips. Dell Technologies Inc, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Super Micro Computer Inc make data center servers that contain Nvidia’s A100 chip.
Dell and HPE said they were monitoring the situation, while Super Micro Computer did not respond to a request for comment.
A senior department official declined to comment on the upcoming action, but said: “As a general rule, we look to codify any restrictions that are in is-informed letters with a regulatory change.”
A department spokesperson on Friday declined to comment on specific regulations, but reiterated that the department is “taking a comprehensive approach to implement additional actions ... to protect US national security and foreign policy interests,” including to keep China from acquiring US technology applicable to military modernization.
KLA, Applied Materials and Nvidia declined to comment, while Lam did not respond to requests for comment.
AMD did not comment on the specific policy move, but reaffirmed it does not foresee a “material impact” from its new licensing requirement.
The planned action comes as Biden’s administration has sought to thwart China’s advances by targeting technologies where the US still maintains dominance.
“The strategy is to choke off China and they have discovered that chips are a choke point. They can’t make this stuff; they can’t make the manufacturing equipment,” said Jim Lewis, a technology expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “That will change.”
In an update on China-related measures last week, the Chamber of Commerce, a US business lobbying group, warned members of imminent restrictions on AI chips and chipmaking tools.
“We are now hearing that members should expect a series of rules or perhaps an overarching rule prior to the mid-term election to codify the guidance in recently issued [commerce department] ‘is-informed’ letters to chip equipment and chip design companies,” the chamber said.
The group also said the agency plans to add additional Chinese supercomputing entities to a trade blacklist.
Reuters was first to report in July that the Biden administration was actively discussing banning exports of chipmaking tools to Chinese factories that make advanced semiconductors at the 14-nanometer node and smaller.
US officials have reached out to allies to lobby them to enact similar policies so that foreign companies would not be able to sell technology to China that US firms would be barred from shipping, two of the sources said.
“Coordination with allies is key to maximizing effectiveness and minimizing unintended consequences,” Clete Willems, a trade official at former US president Donald Trump’s administration said. “This should favor broader regulations that others can replicate instead of one-off ‘is informed’ letters.”
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
Taiwan is attracting a growing number of foreign jobseekers as companies increasingly recruit overseas talent to ease labor shortages and expand global reach, recruitment platform 104 Job Bank (104人力銀行) said yesterday. More than 40,000 foreign nationals searched for jobs in Taiwan through the platform last year, a 28 percent increase from a year earlier, the company said. Malaysians accounted for the largest share of overseas jobseekers at 12.2 percent, followed by Indonesians at 11.9 percent and Vietnamese at 10.8 percent. Indonesian applicants surged more than 50 percent year-on-year, while Vietnamese jobseekers rose by more than 30 percent. Applicants from the
NO SHORTCUTS: Asked about Elon Musk’s Terafab initiative, TSMC CEO C.C. Wei said it takes two to three years to build a fab and another one to two to ramp it up Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday raised its revenue growth forecast for this year to above 30 percent, up from the 25 percent it estimated three months earlier, citing extremely robust artificial intelligence (AI)-related chip demand. “Our customers and customers’ customers, who are mainly cloud service providers, continue to send us very positive signals and outlook,” TSMC chairman and CEO C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said at an earnings conference. The company also hiked its capital expenditure for this year toward the higher end of its forecast, or US$56 billion, as it aims to step up advanced chip capacity expansions, such as
RSS