Washington, Oct 7 – The United States Department of Commerce will prevent Chinese companies or individuals from buying some American-made semiconductors and materials, that office announced this Friday.
Specifically, the order will prevent Chinese companies or individuals from accessing US-made microchips or components, limiting their ability to manufacture parts needed to run supercomputers or advanced military systems.
The rules also mean that any foreign company that supplies such US-made materials to Chinese companies or individuals could in turn be placed on the Commerce Department’s list of sanctioned entities.
The measure, heavily rumored during the last week in some US media, is similar to the restrictions imposed on the Chinese company Huawei by the Administration of the previous US president, Donald Trump (2017-2021).
“The Chinese Communist Party has devoted a great deal of resources to developing advanced computing capabilities and plans to become a leader in Artificial Intelligence by 2030,” Commerce Department Under Secretary for Export Administration Thea Rozman said in a statement. .
Rozman explained that these technological advances are being used to spy on Chinese citizens themselves and to develop advanced military technology.
The announcement of restrictions comes just weeks after the US Congress passed a law to stimulate the production of microchips in the United States.
On Thursday, IBM announced plans to invest $20 billion in New York state over the next 10 years, a project directly backed by US President Joe Biden, who held it up as an example of the results his plan already delivers. to encourage the manufacture of microprocessors and other key products on national soil.
In another visit this Friday, this time to a Volvo production plant, Biden once again valued the “historic” investments that are being made to guarantee the national manufacture of numerous products.
“We are showing that ‘Made in America’ (Made in the United States) is not a slogan, it is a reality,” said Biden, who asked “where is it written that the United States cannot be the world leader in manufacturing again?”