Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has notified Chinese chip design firms that it’s suspending manufacturing of their most superior AI chips from Monday, the Financial Times reported, citing three folks accustomed to the matter.
TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, informed Chinese clients it might now not manufacture AI chips at superior course of nodes of seven nanometres or smaller, FT mentioned on Friday.
The U.S. has imposed a raft of measures geared toward proscribing the cargo of superior GPU chips – which allow AI – to China to hobble its synthetic intelligence capabilities, which Washington fears could possibly be used to develop bioweapons and launch large-scale cyberattacks.
Earlier this month, the U.S. imposed a $500,000 penalty on New York-based GlobalFoundries for delivery chips with out authorization to an affiliate of blacklisted Chinese chipmaker SMIC.
Any future provides of the superior AI chips by TSMC to Chinese clients could be topic to an approval course of prone to contain Washington, in response to the FT report.
“TSMC does not comment on market rumour. TSMC is a law-abiding company and we are committed to complying with all applicable rules and regulations, including applicable export controls,” the corporate mentioned.
The U.S. Department of Commerce didn’t instantly reply to a Reuters request for remark.
The transfer to limit exports to China comes at a time when the U.S. Department of Commerce is investigating how a chip produced by the Taiwanese chipmaker ended up in a product made by China’s closely sanctioned Huawei.
© Thomson Reuters 2024