US President Donald Trump’s administration is sketching out tougher versions of US semiconductor curbs and pressuring key allies to escalate their restrictions on China’s chip industry, an early indication the new US president plans to expand efforts that began under former US president Joe Biden to limit Beijing’s technological prowess.
Trump officials recently met with their Japanese and Dutch counterparts about restricting Tokyo Electron Ltd and ASML Holding NV engineers from maintaining semiconductor gear in China, people familiar with the matter said.
The aim, which was also a priority for Biden, is to see key allies match China curbs the US has placed on US chip gear companies, including Lam Research Corp, KLA Corp and Applied Materials Inc.
Photo: Reuters
In Beijing, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday said that the US plan of coercing other countries into going after China’s semiconductor industry would backfire.
Such actions by the US would hinder development of the global semiconductor industry, ministry spokesman Lin Jian (林劍) told a regular press briefing.
The Trump team’s meetings come in addition to early discussions in Washington about sanctions on specific Chinese companies, other people said.
Some Trump officials also aim to further restrict the type of Nvidia Corp chips that can be exported to China without a license.
They are also having early conversations about tightening existing curbs on the quantity of artificial intelligence (AI) chips that can be exported globally without a license, some of the people said.
It could take months before the talks produce any new US regulations, as Trump makes staffing decisions at key federal agencies. It also remains to be seen whether allies would be more receptive to the new leadership in Washington.
Some officials on the US National Security Council are considering blocking Chinese memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies Inc (長鑫存儲) from buying US technology, while others also want to intensify restrictions on Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (中芯國際), the main chipmaking partner of Chinese telecom giant Huawei Technologies Co (華為).
Then there is the so-called AI diffusion rule, imposed in the final week of Biden’s term. The measure divided the world into three tiers of countries and set maximum thresholds for the AI computing power that can be shipped to each. It also established mechanisms for companies to validate the security of their projects and access higher compute limits.
The rule, which would impact data center developments everywhere from Southeast Asia to the Middle East, drew harsh rebuke from companies including Nvidia. The White House is discussing how to streamline and strengthen that framework, several people familiar with the conversations said, although what that entails is still in flux.
One idea favored by some in the administration would be to reduce the computing power that can be exported without a license. Under current restrictions, chipmakers only have to notify the government before exporting the equivalent of as many as 1,700 graphic processing units (GPUs) to most countries.
Some Trump officials want to reduce that threshold, people familiar with the matter said, which would expand the scope of the license requirement.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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