Why China is restricting exports of graphite
THE CHINESE government was caught off-guard in October last year when America hit it with tough export controls on high-powered semiconductors. Communist leaders in Beijing took months to formulate a firm response. Today China appears far more prepared to fight the simmering war over the future of technology. A recent strengthening of those American chip controls by President Joe Biden’s administration was matched just three days later, on October 20th, with new restrictions on exports of Chinese graphite.
America’s latest volley, which restricts the types of chips that can be sold to China, had been anticipated for weeks. Its original controls curtailed sales to Chinese entities of the cutting-edge chips used in the development of artificial intelligence. This included the A100 chip made by Nvidia, a Californian chipmaker. However, the restrictions, known as “foreign direct product rules” (FDPRs), still allowed Chinese companies to buy less powerful integrated circuits. With ingenuity, many such chips could be strung together to produce greater processing power.
A recent home-grown chip that popped up in mobile phones made by Huawei, a Chinese telecoms giant first blacklisted by America in 2019, has fuelled concern in Washington that China was finding ways around the rules. To forestall more Huawei-like surprises, the latest FDPRs target broader performance measures, making it more difficult to combine punier parts into a more powerful whole. Chinese companies can, for example, no longer purchase Nvidia’s less advanced A800 and H800 chips as replacements for the A100s.
2023-10-25 16:23:01
Link from www.economist.com
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