The United States is considering unilaterally restricting China's access to artificial intelligence (AI) memory chips and the equipment capable of producing these semiconductors as early as next month, Bloomberg reports.
► Read Telegram channel «Ministry of Finance»: main financial news
The restrictions are aimed at preventing U.S. company Micron Technology and leading South Korean memory chip makers SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics from supplying so-called high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips to Chinese firms. The three companies dominate the global market for HBM chips.
The Biden administration is working on several restrictions aimed at keeping critical technologies away from Chinese makers, including restrictions on the sale of chip-making equipment. The new rules would cover artificial intelligence memory chips.
If restrictions are introduced, they will affect HBM2 chips and newer models, including HBM3 and HBM3E, as well as the equipment used to manufacture them. HBM chips are essential to powering artificial intelligence accelerators like those offered by Nvidia and AMD.
Micron Technology will be largely unaffected because the Boise, Idaho-based chipmaker has refrained from selling its HBM products to China after Beijing banned its memory chips from critical infrastructure in 2023.
It’s unclear, however, what powers the U.S. will use to restrict the South Korean companies.
One option is the Foreign Direct Product Rule (FDPR), which allows Washington to impose controls on foreign-made products that use even a small amount of U.S. technology.
Both SK Hynix and Samsung use chip design software and hardware from U.S. companies Cadence Design Systems and Applied Materials.
