The US is preparing to curtail Chinese companies’ access to cloud computing services including Amazon.com Inc’s and Microsoft Corp’s, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the situation.
Washington is considering requiring cloud providers to seek government permission before serving Chinese firms that employ such platforms to train artificial intelligence (AI) models, the Journal reported.
Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services are the global leaders in the business of providing Internet computing to enterprises, and compete in China with the likes of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) through local, state-affiliated data center partners.
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The administration of US President Joe Biden plans to tighten export controls announced in October last year to restrict sales of some AI chips to China, seeking to contain its rival’s development of a technology considered key to the country’s geopolitical and economic future.
Part of the measures under discussion included restricting cloud access for Chinese AI developers, which was first reported by the Journal last week.
Under the broader US Department of Commerce proposal, expected for next month, the US would revise export controls to make it harder to sell some chips to China without a license.
The move is aimed in part at Nvidia Corp’s A800 chip, which the US-based company designed after the earlier controls were announced. The product’s configuration comes just within those limits.
The US and China are escalating their technological conflict. On Monday, Beijing slapped controls on the export of metals critical to the chip, electric vehicle and defense industries, showing it has some power to retaliate against moves by the US, Japan and Europe to cut Beijing off from advanced technology.
The controls on metals, which China said were aimed at protecting national security and its interests, will require exporters to seek permission to ship some gallium and germanium products.
A proposed 100 percent tariff on chip imports announced by US President Donald Trump could shift more of Taiwan’s semiconductor production overseas, a Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) researcher said yesterday. Trump’s tariff policy will accelerate the global semiconductor industry’s pace to establish roots in the US, leading to higher supply chain costs and ultimately raising prices of consumer electronics and creating uncertainty for future market demand, Arisa Liu (劉佩真) at the institute’s Taiwan Industry Economics Database said in a telephone interview. Trump’s move signals his intention to "restore the glory of the US semiconductor industry," Liu noted, saying that
On Ireland’s blustery western seaboard, researchers are gleefully flying giant kites — not for fun, but in the hope of generating renewable electricity and sparking a “revolution” in wind energy. “We use a kite to capture the wind and a generator at the bottom of it that captures the power,” said Padraic Doherty of Kitepower, the Dutch firm behind the venture. At its test site in operation since September 2023 near the small town of Bangor Erris, the team transports the vast 60-square-meter kite from a hangar across the lunar-like bogland to a generator. The kite is then attached by a
Foxconn Technology Co (鴻準精密), a metal casing supplier owned by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), yesterday announced plans to invest US$1 billion in the US over the next decade as part of its business transformation strategy. The Apple Inc supplier said in a statement that its board approved the investment on Thursday, as part of a transformation strategy focused on precision mold development, smart manufacturing, robotics and advanced automation. The strategy would have a strong emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI), the company added. The company said it aims to build a flexible, intelligent production ecosystem to boost competitiveness and sustainability. Foxconn
Leading Taiwanese bicycle brands Giant Manufacturing Co (巨大機械) and Merida Industry Co (美利達工業) on Sunday said that they have adopted measures to mitigate the impact of the tariff policies of US President Donald Trump’s administration. The US announced at the beginning of this month that it would impose a 20 percent tariff on imported goods made in Taiwan, effective on Thursday last week. The tariff would be added to other pre-existing most-favored-nation duties and industry-specific trade remedy levy, which would bring the overall tariff on Taiwan-made bicycles to between 25.5 percent and 31 percent. However, Giant did not seem too perturbed by the
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