US chipmaker Nvidia Corp’s plans to sell technology to China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) would be thwarted if the US government proceeds with a proposal to further restrict shipments to the blacklisted company, a draft report by a US government contractor shows.
The administration of US President Joe Biden has been considering limiting the items it authorizes US companies to ship to telecoms equipment giant Huawei, which was added to a US trade blacklist in 2019, but which continues to receive billions of US dollars in US goods under a special plan implemented by the administration of former US president Donald Trump.
“The proposed 2023 amendment of [the US Department of Commerce’s] licensing will likely have a high economic impact on Nvidia,” a draft report seen by Reuters said, referring to the company’s “pending license value.”
Photo: Reuters
Nvidia’s plans to sell to Huawei have not been previously reported.
“The China market presents a significant opportunity for the US semiconductor industry. While we are unable to comment on any pending license requests, we work with customers and partners worldwide to comply with all applicable export controls and meet market demand,” a Nvidia spokesperson said, declining to comment on the document.
A senior US Department of State official said the document was a preliminary draft prepared by a contractor, and that the department “would not have approved of the report in its current form.”
The government “has written and contracted multiple reports on this subject, based on different contingencies, which arrive at very different conclusions,” they said.
The White House and commerce department declined to comment. Huawei did not respond to a request for comment.
The document shows the Biden administration is seeking to assess the impact on US companies of proposed Huawei policy changes before imposing rules that could crimp projected revenue streams at a time when the tech industry is already reeling.
It also provides unusual insight into the politically sensitive question of which US companies are seeking business ties to Huawei, one of Washington’s most penalized Chinese companies.
The report suggested Qualcomm Inc would likely suffer a “moderate economic impact” from the change in policy, in contrast with Huawei.
However, the loss of access to Qualcomm’s modem chips would have a bigger impact on Huawei, the report forecast, as Huawei “relies heavily on Qualcomm’s modem chips to support its smartphone offering.”
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
Hong Kong authorities ramped up sales of the local dollar as the greenback’s slide threatened the foreign-exchange peg. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) sold a record HK$60.5 billion (US$7.8 billion) of the city’s currency, according to an alert sent on its Bloomberg page yesterday in Asia, after it tested the upper end of its trading band. That added to the HK$56.1 billion of sales versus the greenback since Friday. The rapid intervention signals efforts from the city’s authorities to limit the local currency’s moves within its HK$7.75 to HK$7.85 per US dollar trading band. Heavy sales of the local dollar by
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS