US tightens China chip curbs, pulls Samsung and SK Hynix approvals

The United States has moved to tighten chip rules in China, cancelling approvals that had let Samsung and SK Hynix obtain U.S. chipmaking gear for their China operations, according to a notice in the Federal Register.

In 2022, the Commerce Department set broad export limits on U.S. chip equipment but granted carve-outs for some firms. With those carve-outs now withdrawn, the companies must apply for licenses before buying U.S. tools for use in China.

The filing also named Intel among those losing China authorization, though Intel completed the sale of its Dalian operation earlier this year.

In a statement, Commerce said it plans to approve license requests that keep existing plants in China running, but it does not plan to issue licenses that expand capacity or move to more advanced technology.

The change is expected to trim Chinese demand for equipment from U.S. suppliers KLA Corp, Lam Research and Applied Materials. On the day of the news, Lam fell 4%, Applied Materials slipped 2.8% and KLA was down 2.4%.

White House had warned of possible action

The step follows signals in June, when Commerce said revocations were on the table. A White House official told Reuters that the United States was “just laying the groundwork” if the truce in trade talks with Beijing were to collapse.

For now, both sides are in a tariff standstill, with duties of 30% on Chinese goods entering the United States and 10% Chinese tariffs on U.S. products in place until November. The trade dispute between the two largest economies has touched many areas, from rare earth supplies relied on by U.S. industry to China’s purchases of U.S. soybeans.

Thousands of applications by U.S. firms to ship goods and technology to China have been stuck for months, building a large backlog that includes billions of dollars’ worth of semiconductor manufacturing tools. The revocations become effective after 120 days.

Foreign chipmakers such as Samsung and SK Hynix now hold Validated End User status, which allows shipments without case-by-case licenses. That designation is set to be withdrawn.

The decision could give an opening to Chinese equipment makers whose systems can step in when U.S. tools are harder to obtain. It could also aid Micron, a major U.S. rival to South Korea’s Samsung and SK Hynix in memory chips.

Huawei claims tech independence amid U.S. restrictions

On the other hand, a senior executive at Huawei Technologies said China has virtually overcome crippling U.S. tech curbs, as home-grown computing stacks, AI systems, and other software now match offerings from the United States.

Huawei, which Washington placed on its trade blacklist in May 2019, has already “built an ecosystem entirely independent of the United States”, said Tao Jingwen, president of the firm’s quality, business process, and information technology management department, speaking Wednesday in Guiyang.

Tao pointed to resilience and recent milestones toward technology self-sufficiency.

At an event in Guiyang, he said industry-wide self-reliance could allow China to “surpass the US in terms of artificial intelligence applications”, citing the country’s “extensive economy and business scenarios”.

His remarks align with Huawei’s push across semiconductors, computing, cloud, AI, and operating systems despite tighter U.S. controls and rising geopolitical strain.

On the same day, Huawei said users of token services on its cloud platform could access the CloudMatrix 384 system.

The setup groups 384 Ascend AI chips across 12 computing cabinets and four bus cabinets, providing 300 petaflops of compute and 48 terabytes of high-bandwidth memory. One petaflop equals 1,000 trillion calculations per second.

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