The United States is preparing to ban exports to Huawei in what is expected to be the first in a series of new restrictions that will affect China’s semiconductor industry, artificial intelligence and quantum computing, which are critical to military and commercial technological superiority. fields. sectors. According to White House insiders quoted by the Financial Times, the Joe Biden administration has suspended licensing US companies to export to Huawei and plans to completely ban the sale of US technology to the Chinese telecommunications giant. This is expected to create additional growth challenges for major Chinese chipmakers such as SMIC and YMTC, as well as smaller local competitors such as Hua Hong Semiconductor. End-use control is intended to limit China’s technological development to a fixed technological level, in line with previous comments by US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan that the US would no longer use a “sliding scale” to maintain its leading position in various sectors.
The White House is also considering a plan to ban US companies from entire segments of China’s tech industry, Politico reported Jan. 27. Sources cited by Politico. Paul Triolo, China tech expert at Albright Stonebridge business consultancy in Washington, D.C., commented that the new end-use controls are designed to automatically detect other Chinese companies like Hua Hong that want to upgrade their technology to work with 14 -nm process technology. Triolo believes the whole system is set up to automatically keep China at a fixed technological level.
EE Times interviewed Keith Krach, a former under secretary of commerce during the Trump administration and one of the drafters of the Chip and Science Act, to get his point of view. Kra believes that SMIC and YMTC, among dozens of Chinese companies, pose a serious threat to US national security because they produce semiconductors for their military and, as a result, should be subject to additional restrictions. The collapse also suggests giving priority to Alibaba, Baidu and Tencent, as well as their subsidiaries, as they are the most important companies in China’s artificial intelligence military program and second only to Huawei in securing their state of surveillance.