Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) has notified Chinese chip design companies that it is suspending production of its most advanced AI chips from Monday, according to the Financial Times, citing three people with knowledge of the matter.
TSMC, the world’s biggest chipmaker, has told Chinese customers that it will no longer manufacture AI chips on advanced process nodes of seven nanometers or smaller, the FT said on Friday.
The US has imposed a series of measures aimed at restricting shipments of advanced GPU chips – which enable AI – to China to limit its artificial intelligence capabilities, which Washington fears could be used to develop biological weapons and launch attacks. large-scale cyber attacks.
Earlier this month, the US imposed a $500,000 penalty on New York-based GlobalFoundries for sending chips without authorization to an affiliate of SMIC, a blacklisted Chinese chipmaker.
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Any future supply of advanced AI chips by TSMC to Chinese customers would be subject to an approval process that would likely involve Washington, according to the FT report.
“TSMC does not comment on market rumors. TSMC is a law-abiding company and we are committed to complying with all applicable rules and regulations, including applicable export controls,” the company said.
The US Commerce Department did not respond to a Reuters request for comment at first.
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The move to restrict exports to China comes as the US Commerce Department is investigating how a chip produced by the Taiwanese chipmaker ended up in a product made by Huawei, a heavily sanctioned Chinese company.
(Reporting by Rishi Kant in Bengaluru)
