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☆ U.S. Goes Full-Court Press on China’s Chip Sector
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-10 | by ( Jacky Wong | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The U.S. has drastically dialed up its chip-sector curbs on China. That will severely curtail China’s ambitions of developing its own cutting-edge semiconductor industry—while hurting U.S. companies selling chips or semiconductor equipment to the country. The Biden administration on Friday imposed some of its broadest restrictions yet on semiconductor sector exports to China. Instead of just targeting specific companies such as Huawei, the new restrictions will require U.S. companies to secure licenses to export certain chips used in artificial intelligence and supercomputing, as well as equipment used in advanced semiconductor manufacturing.

☆ China tech shares sink as U.S. export curbs raise chip sector hurdles
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

The most immediate impact is likely to be felt by Chinese chipmakers, they said. The new regulations will now pose major hurdles for the two Chinese memory chipmakers, analysts said. A steep decline in tech shares led China's market down on its first post-Golden Week holiday trading on Monday. An index measuring China's semiconductor firms (.CSIH30184) tumbled nearly 7%, and Shanghai's tech-focused board STAR Market (.STAR50) declined 4.5%. SMIC dropped 4%, chip equipment maker NAURA Technology Group Co (002371.SZ) sank 10% by the daily limit, and Hua Hong Semiconductor plunged 9.5%.

☆ U.S. aims to hobble China’s chip industry with sweeping new export rules
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-07 | by ( ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

The raft of measures could amount to the biggest shift in U.S. policy toward shipping technology to China since the 1990s. If effective, they could set China’s chip manufacturing industry back years by forcing American and foreign companies that use U.S. technology to cut off support for some of China’s leading factories and chip designers. On Friday, the Biden administration applied the expanded restrictions to China’s IFLYTEK, Dahua Technology, and Megvii Technology, companies added to the entity list in 2019 over allegations they aided Beijing in the suppression of its Uigher minority group. The “unverified list” is a potential stepping stone to tougher economic blacklists, but companies that comply with U.S. inspection rules can come off the list. On Friday, U.S. officials removed nine such firms, including China’s Wuxi Biologics, which makes ingredients for AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine.

Now, the United States is going after China's advanced computing and supercomputer industry. The provision called the foreign direct product rule, or FDPR, was first introduced in 1959 to control trading of U.S. technologies. So they expanded the FDPR to control trade of chips made using U.S. technology or tools. The latest move would ban any semiconductor manufacturing firm that uses American tools - which most do - from selling advanced chips to China, said Karl Freund, a chip consultant at Cambrian AI who watches the supercomputing space. In that case, it could take China five to 10 years to catch up to today's technology, he added.

The raft of measures could amount to the biggest shift in U.S. policy toward shipping technology to China since the 1990s. If effective, they could hobble China's chip manufacturing industry by forcing American and foreign companies that use U.S. technology to cut off support for some of China's leading factories and chip designers. The rules published on Friday also block shipments of a broad array of chips for use in Chinese supercomputing systems. "The U.S. should stop the wrongdoings immediately and give fair treatment to companies from all over the world, including Chinese companies." On Saturday, China's foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning called the move an abuse of trade measures designed to reinforce the United States' "technological hegemony".

Oct 7 (Reuters) - Deciding who gets hurt by sweeping new U.S. curbs on selling technology to China will come down in part to what constitutes a "supercomputer," experts told Reuters. Around the world, the semiconductor industry on Friday began to wrestle with wide-ranging U.S. restrictions on selling chips and chip manufacturing equipment to China. Shares of chip equipment makers drooped, but industry experts said a new U.S. definition of a supercomputer could be pivotal to the new rules' impact on China. The new definition is unlikely to change as industry technology improves. "The issue is that the definition of a supercomputer will change over time," he said by email.

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