The U.S. government has imposed similar export controls on China for years aimed at limiting its ability to mint advanced silicon, but the controls apparently haven’t stopped Huawei from developing competing chips for training large AI models.
A Chinese tech company temporarily crippled by US sanctions half a decade ago, Samples sent Its latest AI training chip called Ascend to customers this September, according to the South China Morning Post. Companies investigating Ascend reportedly include TikTok’s Chinese parent, ByteDance, which is Asked for training A larger model mainly uses Ascend. Baidu, which makes China’s leading search engine and recently developed an autonomous driving system Ordered for Huawei’s chips According to Reuters, in a shift from US chip giant Nvidia. (Nvidia declined to comment.)
Export restrictions aimed at curbing China’s AI sector began under the first Trump administration. In 2019, there were several up-and-coming Chinese AI firms included in Entity listing, meaning US firms, including chipmakers such as Nvidia, would need to obtain a special license to do business with them. Following this, China’s major telco and major smartphone maker Huawei were banned from selling chips made with American technology.
The Biden administration extended the controls in October 2022, Limiting exports to China of state-of-the-art GPU chipsIncluding a move made by Nvidia, aimed at curbing the ability of any Chinese company to train the most powerful AI models. Rules was tightened A year later to close loopholes that still allow Chinese firms access to some advanced chips.
The impact of U.S. chip restrictions can be difficult to measure, and some experts question whether the controls are prompting China to make more rapid progress in chipmaking, reducing its reliance on U.S. companies.
In late 2023, Huawei Mate 60 unveiledA smartphone featuring an advanced chip from Chinese chipmaker SMIC. The announcement caused a stir in Washington, as it suggested that SMIC had made considerable progress in advancing its own manufacturing techniques. (Further analysis indicated that Huawei and SMIC were still dependent Foreign suppliers.)
But A Report published This week, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank, argued that the Chinese government began increasing investment in domestic chipmaking even before the U.S. government blocked the country’s access to advanced semiconductors. is It also noted that China has made great strides in areas not subject to export controls, such as solar cell and electric vehicle manufacturing.
