This illustrated photo taken on February 17, 2023 shows a semiconductor chip on a printed circuit board.Reuters/Florence Law/Illustration/File photo Obtaining license rights
Oct. 12 (Reuters) – The Biden administration is considering closing a loophole that allows Chinese companies to access U.S. artificial intelligence (AI) chips through overseas locations, according to four people familiar with the matter. There is.
The United States shocked relations with China last year when it announced new restrictions on shipments of AI chips and chip-making tools to China in an attempt to halt China’s military advances. These rules will be tightened in the coming days. A person familiar with the matter said the measure could be among those new restrictions.
In the first restrictive measure, the Biden administration left overseas subsidiaries of Chinese companies with unrestricted access to the same semiconductors. This means these semiconductors could easily be smuggled into China or accessed remotely by users based in China.
Reuters reported in June that the very chips banned by U.S. regulations may be available for purchase from vendors in the famous Huaqiangbei electronics district in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen.
The U.S. government is currently considering ways to close the loophole, the people said, but the move had not been previously reported.
Efforts to close the loopholes show how the Biden administration is struggling to wean China from leading AI technologies and how difficult it will be to bridge any gaps in export controls.
Greg Allen, director of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, pointed out that Singapore is a major hub for cloud computing, adding, “Certainly, Chinese companies are buying chips for use in overseas data centers.” ” he said.
The Commerce Department declined to comment. Representatives from the Chinese embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment. China’s Ministry of Commerce has previously accused the United States of abusing export controls and urged it to “end its unjust oppression of Chinese companies.”
Shipping these AI chips to mainland China is illegal under U.S. law, but experts say it will be very difficult for the U.S. to police such transactions, and China-based employees will be sent to foreign subsidiaries. He pointed out that some chips could be legally accessed remotely. good.
“We don’t really know how big a problem this is,” said Hannah Dohmen, a research analyst at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technologies (CSET).
The United States is seeking to thwart the rise of China’s artificial intelligence capabilities, according to a report by the International Affairs Review, an affiliate of George Washington University’s School of International Studies. Artificial intelligence capabilities are reportedly helping the Chinese military develop unmanned combat systems.
China’s AI capabilities depend on access to U.S. chips. In a June 2022 report, CSET found that of the 97 individual AI chips procured in Chinese military tenders during the eight months of 2020, almost all were from U.S.-based companies Nvidia, Xilinx, Intel, I discovered that it was designed by Microsemi.
The US government is working to close other loopholes that allow AI chips to flow into China. In August, it directed NVIDIA and AMD to restrict shipments of AI chips beyond China to other regions, including some countries in the Middle East.
New rules for AI chips, expected this month, are likely to apply similar restrictions more broadly to all companies in the market, the people said.
It is less clear how the U.S. government will close loopholes that allow Chinese actors to access U.S. cloud providers such as Amazon Web Services, which offer customers access to the same AI capabilities. But officials say the Biden administration is also working on the issue.
“The Chinese have perfectly legal access to the same chip from anywhere in the world. There are no rules about how they access it,” said Timothy Fist, a researcher at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington-based think tank. Ta.
Reporting by Alexandra Alper and Karen Freifeld.Editing: Chris Saunders and Anna Driver
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