US clarifies semiconductor export restrictions to Chinese firms

The United States has issued a notice affirming its restrictions on shipments of semiconductors to subsidiaries of Chinese companies located outside China amid concerns about loopholes in Washington’s export control regime.

The Department of Commerce said in the guidance issued on Sunday that its licensing requirements for the export of advanced AI chips applied to all businesses with headquarters or a parent company in China.

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The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), which falls under the Commerce Department, said it issued the clarification in response to questions about whether it was enforcing pre-existing licence requirements after it overturned former President Joe Biden’s Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion.

“The answer is yes,” the BIS said in the notice.

Unveiled in the final days of the Biden administration, the framework proposed the implementation of a globe-spanning licensing regime to control access to AI chips, including export caps for all but the closest US allies.

The framework drew backlash from tech firms, including Nvidia, the world’s most valuable chip company, which cast the proposal as a threat to innovation and cross-border collaboration.

President Donald Trump’s administration scrapped the framework last May, before its implementation, citing the “burdensome new regulatory requirements” and the harm it would do to Washington’s diplomatic relations with other countries.

The Reuters news agency first reported the updated guidance.

Chip giant Nvidia, whose top-of-the-line Blackwell GPUs are banned for export to China, said it had already been operating in keeping with the clarified rules.

“The guidance reaffirms that NVIDIA’s sales and vetting process is correct – consistent with our existing approach, licences are required to ship controlled products to PRC-headquartered companies,” an Nvidia spokesperson told Al Jazeera, using the acronym for the People’s Republic of China.

AMD and Intel, Nvidia’s main competitors in the GPU space, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A spokesperson for Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), which manufactures chips on behalf of clients including Nvidia, declined to comment.

The BIS did not respond to inquiries.

Chris McGuire, a former State Department official who worked on technology policy in the Biden administration, accused the Trump administration of providing Chinese companies a loophole to buy export-controlled chips.

“Chinese companies have been buying these chips, very likely at scale. And because BIS has not updated export control regulations to clearly state what it IS enforcing, all of this was legal,” McGuire said in a post on X.

“This clarification does make clear that Blackwell shipments to China-headquartered companies outside of China are now illegal again – which is good, although obviously we have to see how many shipments have already gone to assess how much damage was done,” McGuire said.

“BIS’s statement acknowledges these shipments have been happening when it says companies who bought chips under this loophole don’t have to stop using them.”

The US has rolled out numerous restrictions on the supply of high-end technology to China, as Washington and Beijing battle for dominance in AI.

In December, Trump announced that he would allow Nvidia to sell its H200 chip to China, in a major loosening of Washington’s export controls.

While not Nvidia’s most advanced chip, the H200 is about six times as powerful as the H20, the most advanced chip previously allowed for export to China.