The U.S. Issues New Chip Regulations, Tightening Exports of High-Performance Chips to China

The U.S. government recently announced new chip export control regulations, which have drawn widespread attention from the industry. The new rules further tighten export restrictions on chips to China, covering almost all high-performance chips.

The new regulations have changed the evaluation criteria, relying more on computing power rather than the previous bandwidth parameters. This means that the vast majority of high-performance chips, including consumer-grade graphics cards like the NVIDIA RTX 4090, will be subject to restrictions. Even chips that are slightly below the regulatory standards must notify the government prior to export.

This policy has a significant impact, as almost all high-performance AI chips aimed at the Chinese market are subject to restrictions, including Nvidia's A800, H800, L40S, AMD's MI250, and Intel's Gaudi2.

In addition to direct chip export restrictions, the new regulations also impose barriers in several areas:

1. Expanded the list of countries with export restrictions
2. Strengthened the export licensing management of semiconductor manufacturing equipment
3. Add some Chinese chip companies to the "Entity List"
4. Plan to restrict China's access to cloud computing resources

These measures show that the U.S. government is attempting to comprehensively prevent China from obtaining advanced chips and related manufacturing capabilities.

Reactions in the industry to this strict new regulation vary. The Semiconductor Industry Association ( SIA ), which represents most American chip companies, stated that overly broad unilateral controls could damage the U.S. semiconductor ecosystem. However, some politicians believe the measures are still not strong enough.

The introduction of new regulations also reflects the declining lobbying ability of chip companies. Multiple companies, including NVIDIA and Intel, have previously developed special version chips for the Chinese market, which now face the risk of being restricted. These companies seem to have failed to exert effective influence during the policy-making process.

Analysis suggests that the United States' actions reflect its tendency to abuse its dominant position in the global supply chain, attempting to achieve strategic goals through "weaponizing dependence." This approach may accelerate China's progress in enhancing its independent chip capabilities.

For China, independent research and development of advanced chips has become a must-answer question. Although there is still a gap between domestic chips and market demand, this will only delay rather than prevent the development of artificial intelligence in China. As the battle of large models is in full swing, China has already demonstrated strong capabilities in the field of large models, and this trend is worth looking forward to.