US imposes wider restrictions on chip exports on Chinese companies – IT Pro – News

The US has issued export restrictions requiring US companies wishing to export chips and / or chip manufacturing equipment to China to apply for a government license. Chips made with US technology are also subject to restrictions.

According to the US Department of Commerce, the new export restrictions should ensure that some chip technologies do not fall into the hands of the Chinese military and Chinese intelligence services. The US government says so in its official documentation regular computer chips, chip manufacturing equipment and semiconductors intended for use in “supercomputers,” but the government also refers to military equipment that uses semiconductors.

The US government defines a supercomputer as a computer system that has a maximum computing power of 100 petaflops. This is if it is a 64-bit system. In the case of a 32-bit system, a maximum of 200 petaflops is the benchmark for a supercomputer. According to sources who could speak to the editors of Reutersthis also targets Chinese commercial data centers in major cities such as Beijing.

The new restrictions come after the US government announced earlier this year had imposed a restriction to US companies KLA Corp, Lam Research Corp and Applied Materials. These companies were no longer allowed to export chip-making equipment to Chinese companies that produce sub-14nm chips in their factories, unless they were allowed to do so. American companies AMD and Nvidia too heard last summer that they could no longer export certain AI accelerators to China. This was only possible if they had permission from the US government.

Update, 10.20: Introduction modified. It was not mentioned that the new measures also apply to US exports of chip manufacturing equipment.