The US is ready to tighten restrictions on China’s access to chips and technologies – Kommersant

US authorities are considering options to close existing loopholes for Chinese companies trying to gain access to American chips and technology. The agency reported this today, October 13 Reuters citing people familiar with the situation.

Last year the US introduced large-scale export restrictions on the supply of high-tech chips and equipment for their production to China. These restrictions, however, left loopholes for circumventing the prohibitions. In particular, the restrictions did not apply to foreign branches of Chinese companies, which made it easy to transport them to China or organize remote access to them for users from China. The same Reuters agency reported in the summer that chips prohibited for sale to the Chinese can easily be bought in China itself.

Over the summer, the US ordered chipmakers such as Nvidia and AMD to limit supplies of artificial intelligence (AI) chips to the Middle East. It is expected that the US authorities will now extend restrictions to all companies operating on the market.

Another loophole remains: the Chinese could easily get by without exporting chips and technology by simply using US cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services, which provide their consumers with access to the same AI capabilities. “Chinese citizens can legally access the same chips from anywhere. There are no rules about gaining such access,” says one expert, Timothy Feast of the Center for a New American Security. However, according to agency sources, Biden administration officials are trying to find a way to close this loophole.

Representatives of the US Department of Commerce declined to comment on the Reuters information.

Washington and Beijing are looking for new ways of interaction – in material “Kommersant”.

Victor Buk