Facing China's technological progress, the US is afraid and begins to impose extreme suppression on Chinese technology enterprises.

According to a report by the Financial Times of the UK, the US Department of Commerce issued guidance notes clarifying that Chinese technology companies' processors are subject to export controls because they almost certainly contain or use American technology.

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) of the US Department of Commerce, which oversees export controls, said on Tuesday that it would impose stricter measures on foreign artificial intelligence chips, including "issuing guidance stating that using Chinese chips anywhere in the world violates US export control regulations."

However, insiders emphasized that the BIS did not issue new rules but clearly informed companies that Chinese technology companies' chips are very likely to violate one measure: exporting US technology to Chinese companies requires strict review licensing.

The report pointed out that the BIS stated that three types of chips produced by Chinese companies are subject to this regulation, and these chips are likely to have "used certain US software or technology in their design, or used semiconductor manufacturing equipment directly producing certain US-origin software or technology, or both."

This guidance comes as the US becomes increasingly concerned about the speed at which Chinese companies are developing advanced chips and other AI hardware. Chinese companies have begun offering AI chip "clusters" to domestic customers and claim their performance exceeds comparable products from Nvidia, a leading US AI chip manufacturer, in key indicators such as total computing power and memory.

These chips perform individually below Nvidia's most advanced products, but their overall performance surpasses Nvidia's competitive cluster products.

Washington is increasingly worried that Chinese companies will soon sell AI processors capable of competing with products from US companies like Nvidia on domestic and international markets.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said last month that Chinese companies are "some of the strongest tech companies in the world," and the US policy should help its companies compete globally. Nvidia declined to comment on the new regulations issued by the BIS.

The US Department of Commerce also repealed the "AI Diffusion Rule" on Tuesday. The previous Biden administration had planned for this measure to take effect on May 15. The rule aimed to restrict the export of AI chips to other countries, making it harder for China to circumvent existing US export controls.

However, the BIS under the Trump administration said this rule was overly bureaucratic and would issue an alternative regulation in the future – former Biden officials opposed this view.

This news was announced on the same day that Trump visited Saudi Arabia. Trump unveiled a series of deals on Tuesday, including a commitment from Humain, a newly established state-owned AI company in Saudi Arabia, to use tens of thousands of Nvidia chips to build AI infrastructure.

A source said that the scale of the proposed Gulf deal shocked many high-ranking officials in the Trump administration. They were concerned about the offshoring of large-scale AI infrastructure and ignored cooperation between Saudi Arabia and the UAE with China.

Source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/1832122569543692/

Disclaimer: This article represents only the author's views.