The Biden administration in the United States has updated export control regulations for artificial intelligence (AI) chips, which not only restrict American companies from selling chips to China, but also implicate chip equipment manufacturers such as Applied Materials, Pan Forest Group, and KLA. This is because the new measures have expanded the licensing requirements for exporting advanced chips to more than 40 countries outside of China, and imposed licensing requirements for chip manufacturing tools on 21 countries outside of China, expanding the list of equipment prohibited from entering these countries.
US Department of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo stated that the new measures aim to “plug loopholes” and stated that these measures may be updated at least annually in the future. Senior US government officials also stated that if data center chips exceed the performance threshold set in October last year, or exceed the new performance density threshold benchmark measured in flops per square millimeter, the US will simply restrict the export of data center chips. And companies that want to export artificial intelligence chips to China or other prohibited areas must notify the US government. Senior government officials also stated that they plan to expand the list of semiconductor manufacturing equipment restricted by the United States.
Last October, the United States imposed bandwidth rate restrictions on AI chips exported to China, including NVIDIA A100 and H100 chips. Afterwards, NVIDIA provided alternative versions of A800 and H800 to Chinese companies.
According to the latest rules, Nvidia’s chip exports to China, including A800 and H800, will be affected. The new regulations will take effect after 30 days of public consultation. Nvidia responded, “We comply with all applicable regulations and strive to provide thousands of application products that support different industries. Given the global demand for our products, we do not anticipate that the new regulations will have a substantial impact on our financial performance in the short term.”
ASML, a Dutch photolithography manufacturer, issued a statement on the new regulations on chip restrictions in the United States, saying that it would need to carefully evaluate any potential impact. However, as far as the company’s current business is concerned, the number of chip manufacturers in Chinese Mainland that apply the new regulations involving advanced chip manufacturing is limited. The statement also stated that the US chip export control measures may have an impact on the regional division of the company’s system sales in the medium to long term, but are not expected to have a significant impact on the company’s financial outlook for 2023, as well as the long-term scenarios for 2025 and 2030. ASML emphasizes that it will seek further clarification from US authorities on the scope of these new regulations.
According to CCTV News, on October 16th, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning presided over a regular press conference. Reuters reporter asked that the Biden government is expected to take more measures to restrict chip exports to China. What is China’s response to this? Mao Ning stated that China has repeatedly expressed its position on US chip export controls to China. We believe that the United States should stop politicizing, instrumentalizing, and weaponizing economic, trade, and technological issues, and stop disrupting the stability of the global supply chain. China will closely monitor relevant trends and resolutely safeguard its own rights and interests.

It is worth noting that on October 17th, the US Department of Commerce also announced the inclusion of Bi Ren Technology and Moore Thread in the physical list. Both companies have expressed strong dissatisfaction with this. Among them, Biren Technology released a statement stating that the company is concerned about the inclusion of Chinese technology companies such as Biren Technology in the physical list by the US Department of Commerce. The company strongly opposes the US Department of Commerce’s move and will actively appeal to relevant US government departments, calling on the US government to re-examine it. Bi Ren Technology has a vision of “Intelligent Painting Global”, strictly adhering to the laws and regulations of relevant countries and regions, and always operating legally and in accordance with regulations on this basis. The company is evaluating the potential impact of this incident on the company, preparing for response measures, and will communicate extensively with all parties.
Moore Thread, on the other hand, stated that the company was concerned about the news that the US Department of Commerce included Moore Thread in the “entity list” on October 17th local time, and strongly protested against this. Since its establishment, Moore Thread has strictly followed the laws and regulations of relevant countries and regions, always adhering to a legal and compliant corporate culture and management philosophy, and establishing a comprehensive export control compliance management system and workflow guidelines. Moore Thread stated that the company is currently actively communicating with all parties and evaluating the impact of this matter.