US Blocks China’s Access to Advanced Chips to Stop AI Development: Read More
On Tuesday, the Biden administration issued a sweeping update to restrictions on exports of advanced artificial intelligence to China and other countries.
The measures are designed to prevent China from acquiring high-end chips needed to develop artificial intelligence technologies such as large language models that run apps like ChatGPT, but which U.S. officials say also have military uses that pose a national security threat.
Here’s a closer look at how the Biden administration is tightening the rules.
MORE CHIPS
The original rules last year limited chips if they met a two-part test of how much computing power the chips contained and how quickly they could talk to other chips. These measures were considered important because AI systems require thousands of chips to be chained together at a time in order to crunch through vast stores of data.
Nvidia, a leading supplier of AI chips, responded by creating chips that fell slightly below the communication limits of the Chinese market, but still proved useful for AI work.
On Tuesday, US officials said they would focus solely on computing power, which drives a wider range of chips — including Nvidia’s recent creations for China.
The new rules also require chip companies to notify U.S. authorities when they sell chips that fall just below the limits, so authorities can monitor whether the chips are being used in large quantities for AI work.
CLOSING ‘CHIPLET’ PORKS
Another problem US regulators are trying to tackle is a new technology known as “chips”, where smaller parts of a chip are joined together to form a full chip. Analysts had expressed concern that such technology could be used by Chinese companies to obtain chips that stayed within legal limits but could later be secretly assembled into a larger chip that would break the rules.
The new rules imposed a “performance frequency” limit designed to prevent such circumvention.
INCREASING CHINA’S NVIDIA CHALLENGES TO THE BLACKS
Chip industry observers believe that if US AI chips are banned in China, Chinese companies will seek to fill the market void.
On Tuesday, US authorities added two leading Chinese chip startups, Biren and Moore Threads, to a US trade blacklist. Both Biren and Moore Threads were founded by former Nvidia employees in China and were believed to be leading candidates in China to produce domestic alternatives to Nvidia’s chips.
Adding them to the so-called to the entity list could disrupt startups by preventing them from having chips made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. or other leading chip makers that use U.S. equipment.
RED FLAGS FOR CHIP FACTORIES
The US said any chip that contains at least 50 billion transistors, the tiny switches at the heart of all the computing circuits and uses so-called high-bandwidth memory, is a “red flag” that an exporter should consider when deciding whether they need a license to ship goods to China. This threshold would cover almost all advanced AI chips and is intended to help chipmakers detect attempts to circumvent the rules.
EXTENDED COVERAGE
US officials expanded licensing requirements for the export of advanced chips from China and Macau to all 22 countries where the US maintains an arms embargo. Authorities also extended controls to all companies whose ultimate parent company is headquartered in one of these countries to prevent offshore subsidiaries from buying the banned chips.
