China's cyberspace regulator said on Sunday that products made by U.S. memory chip manufacturer Micron Technology had failed its network security review and that it would bar operators of key infrastructure from procuring from the firm:
The decision, announced amid a dispute over chip technology between Washington and Beijing, could include sectors ranging from transport to finance, according to China's broad definition of critical information infrastructure.
"The review found that Micron's products have serious network security risks, which pose significant security risks to China's critical information infrastructure supply chain, affecting China's national security," the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said in a statement.
[...] U.S. officials, including members of a U.S. congressional select committee on competition with China, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Micron derives around 10% of its revenue from China, but it is not clear if the decision affects the company's sales to non-Chinese customers in the country.
Also at The Register, MarketWatch and ABC News.
Related:
- US Restrictions See China's Chip Imports Plummet 27% in First Two Months of 2023
- Netherlands Refuses to Summarily Agree to US Export Restrictions on China Over Silicon Chips
- US Chip Makers Hit by New China Export Rule
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US Chip Makers Hit by New China Export Rule
US chip makers hit by new China export rule:
Nvidia says the US government requires a new licence, effective immediately, to address the risk of chips being "used in, or diverted to a 'military end use'... in China and Russia".
There are fears the rule could lead to millions of dollars in lost revenue.
Shares of both chipmakers slipped in after-hours trading in New York.
Nvidia's shares were down by 6.6% while AMD slipped 3.7%.
[...] In a statement, Beijing said "The US side should immediately stop its wrongdoing, treat companies from all over the world including Chinese companies fairly, and do more things that are conducive to the stability of the world economy."
No GPUs for You: US Blocks Sales of AI Chips to China and Russia
No GPUs for you: US blocks sales of AI chips to China and Russia:
In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing last Friday, Nvidia reported that US government officials have ordered restrictions on sales of its top AI chips to China and Russia. The new restrictions (in the form of licensing requirements, subject to approval by the US government) include the powerful A100 Tensor Core GPU, the upcoming H100, and any chips of equivalent power or systems that incorporate them. The goal is to "address the risk that the covered products may be used in, or diverted to, a 'military end use' or 'military end user' in China and Russia," according to Nvidia, which notes that the firm already does not sell products to customers in Russia.
Reuters reports that the Department of Commerce intends for the new policy to "keep advanced technologies out of the wrong hands." China isn't happy about the restrictions, calling the move part of a "tech blockade." The US has also restricted sales of AMD's MI250 Accelerator AI chip to China. Whether this effort will have any effect on China's AI capability in the long term remains to be seen, as Chinese firms have begun developing their own GPUs for graphics and AI use.
Netherlands refuses to summarily agree to US export restrictions on China over silicon chips.:
The United States of America has requested a number of countries in Europe and Asia to impose sanctions on Chinese chip manufacturing firms. One of these, the Netherlands, has come out and put a statement saying that they will not summarily accept new US restrictions on exporting chip-making technology to China, and is consulting with European and Asian allies.
The Dutch Trade Minister Liesje Schreinemacher on Sunday said that he expects the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to discuss export policy with President Joe Biden when Prime Minister Rutte visits the US.
In effect though, the Netherlands has stopped ASML Holding from shipping its most advanced machines to China and is only allowing them to sell machinery and technology that were made before 2019.
The Dutch government has denied ASML permission to ship its most advanced machines to China since 2019 following a pressure campaign by the Trump administration, but ASML did sell 2 billion euros worth of older machines to China in 2021.
The US took action in October to limit China's capacity to produce its own chips, and US trade officials stated at the time that they anticipated the Netherlands and Japan to follow suit soon. ASML has said that should the rules proposed by the US come into play, it could impact roughly 5 per cent of its group sales.
Previously: Dutch Chip Equipment Maker ASML's CEO Questions U.S. Export Rules on China
The sanctions are having a huge impact:
[...] According to China's General Administration of Customs data published Tuesday (via The South China Morning Post), the country imported 67.6 billion integrated circuits (IC) in January and February. That's down 26.5% from the same period last year, and higher than the 15.3% fall recorded for the entirety of 2022.
The total value of these imports also declined, from $68.8 billion last year to $47.8 billion, a drop of 30.5%. That's partly due to chip prices that have fallen due to oversupply and the general economic downturn.
China's IC exports also fell in the first two months, down 20.9% to 37.3 billion units, while the total value of the exports dropped 25.8%.
The US has been tightening its restrictions on China's chip industry over the last 12 months, which the United States says will prevent its global rival from developing semiconductors for military applications, including supercomputers, nuclear weapons modeling, and hypersonic weapons.
October's restrictions on chipmaking tools from the Bureau of Industry and Security were some of the harshest, designed to cap China's logic chips at the 14-nanometre node, DRAM at 18nm, and 3D NAND flash at 128 layers. The US has also prohibited AMD and Nvidia from selling some of its high-performance AI-focused GPUs to China, including team green's A100 GPUs.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday May 23 2023, @09:17AM (4 children)
It was pretty obvious China will ban American memory after Yangtze Memory Technologies (YMTC) and ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) were banned by the US. The real problem is that China probably just shorted the hell out of Micron and walked away with a fine bounty. So, assuming they did and that the trend will continue, I can't imagine the US could just continue doing business as usual without putting up laws that limit foreign investments like China does. This will, of course, weaken the value of the dollar so... Hmm... Yeah. Really shouldn't have poked that pooh panda...
p.s. Just realized why the protagonist from Kung Fu Panda is called Po...
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(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday May 23 2023, @11:53AM (1 child)
Memory is cheap right now. Too cheap [soylentnews.org], according to the companies selling it.
U.S. companies will continue debasing themselves to get into the Chinese market.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday May 23 2023, @03:30PM
Or they'll get bailed out like Intel. Time will say.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday May 23 2023, @12:39PM (1 child)
Only if you don't treat such market manipulation as information leakage. And there are plenty of workarounds for a foreign investment restriction. For example, having a native figurehead for your foreign investments or simply not holding onto investments for any length of time.
(Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday May 23 2023, @03:15PM
It's not insider's trade when people believe/know and act on what a goverment is about to do. In fact, goverment owned and/or funded companies and/or the goverment themselves can buy stocks in various markets directly. e.g. It's fairly common with pension funds to invest in various securities and such...
there are plenty of workarounds for a foreign investment restriction...
Worked great for Softbank and ARM China...
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