Sens. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., and Chris Coons, D-Del., announced Dec. 4 that they have introduced a bill to codify into law the Trump administration’s current limits on what advanced AI chips can be sold to China and other foreign “adversaries.”
Rep. Julie Johnson, D-Texas, and Del. James Moylan, R-Guam, announced Dec. 3 that they have introduced a bill aimed at protecting whistleblowers who report defense export control violations.
The U.S. should maintain and strengthen export restrictions on advanced chips and semiconductor manufacturing equipment to preserve its edge over China in AI, a panel of experts told lawmakers Dec. 2.
Sens. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., and Mark Warner, D-Va., introduced a bill April 10 aimed at preventing the smuggling of U.S. artificial intelligence chips into China.
The Bureau of Industry and Security fined multinational chip maker GlobalFoundries $500,000 after it illegally exported semiconductor wafers to a Entity Listed firm with ties to Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC), China’s flagship chip manufacturing company.
Nazak Nikakhtar, acting head of the Bureau of Industry and Security during the Trump administration, blamed the deep state for a lack of urgency in confronting China, during a podcast interview with China Talk. Nikakhtar did not use that term, but said that it was hard for Commerce Department career officials to shift their thinking from promoting exports of goods to restricting exports or investment. Nikakhtar was previously a civil servant herself, working on antidumping and countervailing duty cases and negotiations with China.
Recently issued guidelines by the White House’s Office of Science Technology Policy could raise export compliance stakes for universities and research institutions, law firms said, especially for researchers that receive semiconductor-related federal funding under the Chips Act.
The Commerce Department will award up to $6.6 billion in funding to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company under the Chips Act to help the leading semiconductor manufacturing firm build fabs in Arizona, the agency announced April 8. Commerce said it signed a “non-binding preliminary memorandum of terms” with TSMC for the funding, which will help it build two previously announced fabs in Phoenix (see 2005150033) and an additional third fab before the end of the decade.
The Commerce Department this week announced plans to provide about $20 billion in funding and loans to Intel under the Chips Act, which it said will “strengthen” the U.S. semiconductor supply chain by ensuring more leading-edge logic chips are made in America. Commerce said Intel expects to invest more than $100 billion over the next five years to set up new chip fabs and other facilities in Arizona, New Mexico, Ohio and Oregon, and coupled with Chips Act funding, that “would mark one of the largest investments ever announced in U.S. semiconductor manufacturing.”
A trade association representing ASML, Applied Materials and other major semiconductor companies called on the EU to keep any new export controls narrowly targeted and abandon its plans for an outbound investment screening mechanism, saying new restrictions would be a “major interference” for the chip industry. It also cautioned European lawmakers about introducing new supply chain reporting obligations that would place too big a burden on industry.