Shannon Brandao
From the article: "🤓🇨🇳🤳 Someone tell Ren Zhengfei that his big-reveal #chip spite has Washington's undivided attention now. Classic.
VOA [excerpt]: U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo vowed Monday to take the 'strongest action possible' in response to a #semiconductor chip-making breakthrough in #China that a House Foreign Affairs Committee said 'almost certainly required the use of U.S. origin technology and should be an #exportcontrol violation.'
In an interview with Bloomberg News, Raimondo called #Huawei #Technology’s advanced processor in its Mate Pro 60 #smartphone released in August 'deeply concerning' and said the Commerce Department investigates such things vigorously.
The United States has banned chip sales to Huawei, which reportedly used chips from China chip giant Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., or SMIC, in the phone that are 7 nanometers, a technology China has not been known as able to produce.
Raimondo said the U.S. was also looking into the specifics of three new artificial intelligence accelerator chips that California-based Nvidia Corp. is developing for China. 'We look at every spec of every new chip, obviously, to make sure it doesn’t violate the export controls,' she said.
. . . "Almost certainly required US origin technology"
The U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee in a December 7 report criticized the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, or BIS, the regulatory body for regulating dual-use export controls.
The report said Chinese chip giant 'SMIC is producing 7 nanometer chips — advanced technology for semiconductors that had been only capable of development by TSMC, Intel and Samsung.'
'Despite this breakthrough by SMIC, which almost certainly required the use of U.S. origin technology and should be an export control violation, BIS has not acted,' the 66-page report said. 'We can no longer afford to avoid the truth: the unimpeded transfer of U.S. technology to China is one of the single-largest contributors to China’s emergence as one of the world’s premier scientific and technological powers.'
Excessive approvals alleged
Committee Chairman Michael McCaul said BIS had an excessive rate of approval for controlled technology transfers and lacked checks on end-use, raising serious questions about the current U.S. export control mechanism.
'U.S. export control officials should adopt a presumption that all [Chinese] entities will divert technology to military or surveillance uses,' said McCaul’s report, but 'currently, the overwhelming approval rates for licenses or exceptions for dual-use technology transfers to China indicate that licensing officials at BIS are likely presuming that items will be used only for their intended purposes.'”
#news #geopolitics #business