The U.S. has sanctioned a variety of Chinese computer chip manufacturers.

U.S. Commerce Dept. Puts Out Naughty List of 21 Chinese Chipmaker Companies for Sanctions

If you are a stockholder of Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. (YMTC), you might want to think about moving that stock, according to an article from eetimes.com. It says YMTC has made the Blacklist.

The U.S. Commerce Department is blacklisting Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. (YMTC) and more than 20 other Chinese chipmakers suspected of an AI threat to U.S. national security.

The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) expanded measures taken in October by adding YMTC and companies like AI chip designer Cambricon Technologies to its so-called Entity List, blocking their ability to buy semiconductors and production tools that are made with U.S. technology.

“Today, we are building on the actions we took in October to protect U.S. national security by severely restricting the PRC’s ability to leverage artificial intelligence, advanced computing, and other powerful, commercially available technologies for military modernization and human rights abuses,” Alan Estevez, Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security, said in prepared remarks issued Wednesday. “This work will continue.”

Every year there are many Chinese corporations that find themselves on this banned list. And every year it is clear that the Chinese government encourages their more unscrupulous citizenry to steal American technology and our intellectual rights to a variety of products.

Twenty-one of the companies are “major” AI-chip developers and vendors that support the PRC military and defense industry, according to the BIS statement. Seven of the entities supporting the PRC’s military modernization have been engaged in hypersonic weapons development and other efforts related to China’s military activities, the BIS said.

As this article points out, the Chinese have deployed hypersonic missiles. The U.S. government hasn’t even announced that it has such missiles. The question is where did the technology come from to build these kinds of weapons? Many people will tell you it was stolen from the United States and other countries.

Schumer Shows Concern

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has added his voice to the side that has raised the issues mentioned on these 21 companies.

“I’ve long sounded the alarm on the grave national security and economic threats behind YMTC and other Chinese Communist Party-backed technology companies, like CXMT and SMIC,” Schumer said in prepared remarks. “YMTC poses an immediate threat to our national security, so the Biden Administration needed to act swiftly to prevent YMTC from gaining even an inch of a military or economic advantage.”

There is another side to this issue and those people say it’s short-sighted to sanction this chip company, especially when chips seem to be in short supply worldwide.

“The new entity listing cited YTMC supplying Huawei and HikVision, two other entity-listed companies as a concern and the primary justification for listing,” said Paul Triolo, a senior VP at Dentons Global Advisors. “This somewhat tautological justification does not explain what the national security issue is when a Chinese company is providing commodity semiconductors to another Chinese company for consumer handsets that are not even at the cutting edge.”

The new U.S. measure is likely to be the catalyst that forces Beijing to respond in ways it has not considered before, Triolo said.

“The latest restrictions will likely be added to China’s World Trade Organization complaint at a minimum, he added.  “Responses could include naming some U.S. firms to the Unreliable Entities List, investigating firms under the anti-sanctions or blocking law, or using cybersecurity reviews to harass U.S. firms operating in China.”

With one of the largest chip manufacturers from Taiwan building a huge facility in Phoenix Arizona currently, the hope is that soon it won’t matter if the Chinese want to play fair or if they don’t.

read more at eetimes.com