Washington DC, United States: The Biden administration has announced that it is planning to remove the loophole that can provide access to American artificial intelligence (AI) chips to Chinese companies. According to the sources closely associated with the matter, the units will close the loopholes through the units located overseas.
Last year, the US disrupted ties with Beijing when it released the new shipment restrictions of AI chips and chipmaking tools to China. Reportedly, the nation sought to thwart its military advances.
The rules are expected to be tightened in the upcoming days, several reports claimed. Reuters has claimed that people associated with the situation underscored that these new restrictions would be included in the measures.
The Biden administration, during the initial round of curbs, the overseas subsidiaries of China-based companies were left with unrestricted access to the same semiconductors. It is to be noted that this provided an easy way to smuggle into China or can be easily accessed remotely by users in China.
According to the reports shared by Reuters in the month of June, the chips that are banned by US regulation are easily available in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen from famed vendors such as Huaqiangbei Electronics.
Several reports outlined that the ways are being searched by the Biden administration to close these loopholes. Accordingly, these reports have not been previously reported. These efforts are clear signs the administration has been struggling to remove China from top AP technology.
Reuters noted that it also shows that it is difficult to plug every gap in export controls. Emphasizing Singapore being a big hub for cloud computing, the director at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies – Greg Allen, said, “Absolutely, Chinese firms are purchasing chips for use in data centers abroad.”
Any comment on the matter was declined by the Commerce Department, as the Reuters. When requested for a comment, a representative from the Chinese Embassy in Washington decided not to respond immediately.
It is to be noted that earlier, the Ministry of Commerce of China accused the US of abusing export controls. It also asked the US authorities to “stop its unreasonable suppression of the Chinese companies.”
Various experts have claimed that it is very difficult for the authorities of the United States to track the transactions, which are illegal under US law, to ship those AI chips to China. It was further highlighted that these chips are easy to access by the China-based employees because of their availability at foreign subsidiaries.
A Research Analyst at the Centre for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET) of Georgetown University – Hanna Dohmen, was quoted saying, “We don’t actually know how big a problem this is.”
Report by The International Affairs Review:
The report in the International Affairs Review, affiliated with the School of International Affairs of George Washington University, has shown that the authorities of the United States have been finding ways to put a break on the rising capacity of China’s AI, helping the military in developing combat systems, which are fully automatic.
Reports have further stated that the capacity of China’s AI industry is directly or indirectly affected by its access to US chips. A report published by CSET in June 2022 revealed that as many as 97 individual AI chips used by the Chinese military were majorly designed by US-based companies, including Nvidia, Xilinx, Intel, and Microsemi.
As per the reports by Reuters, Washington has been putting all the possible efforts to close all the loopholes that give access to AI chips in China. In the month of August, Nvidia and AMD were guided to restrict shipment of the chips beyond China, including countries in the Middle East region.
Several sources have stated that the new rules, which are expected to be announced this month, will put some restrictions on all companies in the market. A fellow at Washington-based think tank Center for a New American Security, named Timothy Fist, said, “Chinese persons can completely legally access the same chips from anywhere in the world. There are no rules about how they can be accessed,” according to Reuters.