Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday.
It did not publicly announce the change.
Photo: Bloomberg
Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere.
Local companies need approval from the government before they can ship anything to users on the entity list, according to regulations.
In 2023, Bloomberg News reported that several Taiwanese companies were helping Huawei build infrastructure for an under-the-radar network of chip plants across southern China.
The new restrictions are likely to, at least partially, cut off Huawei and SMIC’s access to Taiwan’s plant construction technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors, such as those made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) for the likes of Nvidia Corp.
In Huawei’s case, several of its overseas units, including in Japan, Russia and Germany, were also captured in the update to the entity list. Huawei and SMIC — and some of their subsidiaries — are also on the US entity list, which has significantly limited the companies’ ability to acquire foreign technology.
While Taiwan has for years imposed certain blanket bans on the shipments of critical chipmaking equipment, including lithography machines, to China, it has not included leading Chinese tech companies or chipmakers on its entity list previously. TSMC, the go-to chipmaker for Apple Inc and Nvidia, cut off its supplies to Huawei in 2020 because of US export controls.
Huawei, together with SMIC, shocked US politicians in 2023 by releasing an advanced, made-in-China 7-nanometer chip. While the two are struggling to improve their technologies due to various curbs, they are still China’s best hope to help fill in the AI chip gap left by a lack of Nvidia’s most sophisticated semiconductors.
Tensions between Taiwan and China also stepped up a notch earlier this year after President William Lai (賴清德) labeled China a “foreign hostile force” for the first time and unveiled wide-ranging measures to counter infiltration efforts.
The US government has signed defense cooperation agreements with Japan and the Philippines to boost the deterrence capabilities of countries in the first island chain, a report by the National Security Bureau (NSB) showed. The main countries on the first island chain include the two nations and Taiwan. The bureau is to present the report at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee tomorrow. The US military has deployed Typhon missile systems to Japan’s Yamaguchi Prefecture and Zambales province in the Philippines during their joint military exercises. It has also installed NMESIS anti-ship systems in Japan’s Okinawa
‘WIN-WIN’: The Philippines, and central and eastern European countries are important potential drone cooperation partners, Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung said Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) in an interview published yesterday confirmed that there are joint ventures between Taiwan and Poland in the drone industry. Lin made the remark in an exclusive interview with the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). The government-backed Taiwan Excellence Drone International Business Opportunities Alliance and the Polish Chamber of Unmanned Systems on Wednesday last week signed a memorandum of understanding in Poland to develop a “non-China” supply chain for drones and work together on key technologies. Asked if Taiwan prioritized Poland among central and eastern European countries in drone collaboration, Lin
Renewed border fighting between Thailand and Cambodia showed no signs of abating yesterday, leaving hundreds of thousands of displaced people in both countries living in strained conditions as more flooded into temporary shelters. Reporters on the Thai side of the border heard sounds of outgoing, indirect fire yesterday. About 400,000 people have been evacuated from affected areas in Thailand and about 700 schools closed while fighting was ongoing in four border provinces, said Thai Rear Admiral Surasant Kongsiri, a spokesman for the military. Cambodia evacuated more than 127,000 villagers and closed hundreds of schools, the Thai Ministry of Defense said. Thailand’s military announced that
NO CONFIDENCE MOTION? The premier said that being toppled by the legislature for defending the Constitution would be a democratic badge of honor for him Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) yesterday announced that the Cabinet would not countersign the amendments to the local revenue-sharing law passed by the Legislative Yuan last month. Cho said the decision not to countersign the amendments to the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) was made in accordance with the Constitution. “The decision aims to safeguard our Constitution,” he said. The Constitution stipulates the president shall, in accordance with law, promulgate laws and issue mandates with the countersignature of the head of the Executive Yuan, or with the countersignatures of both the head of the Executive Yuan and ministers or
RSS