The BIS clearly pointed out that even if the chips are produced overseas, if the parent company or headquarters is located in "embargo countries" such as China, they are still under the control of the United States. This regulation is a manifestation of the United States' "long-arm jurisdiction", aiming to restrict China and other countries from obtaining advanced computing power chip technology from the source and hinder the development of the semiconductor industry and artificial intelligence and other fields in these countries.

On May 13th, the US Department of Commerce issued multiple policy measures to strengthen the export control of semiconductors. Among them, the "Guiding Opinions on the Application of General Ban 10(GP10) to Advanced Computing Integrated Circuits of the People's Republic of China" clearly stipulates that the use of Huawei's Ascend chips anywhere in the world violates the US export control regulations. It is suspected to be targeted at three chip products of Huawei Ascend, namely 910B, 910C and 910D. The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), which is under the US Department of Commerce, has warned that enterprises that violate the rules will face law enforcement actions, and individuals who use the relevant chips without authorization may face serious criminal and administrative penalties such as up to 20 years in prison.

Meanwhile, the United States issued the "Statement on the Control Policy of Advanced Computing Integrated Circuits and Other Products That May Be Applicable to Training Artificial Intelligence Models by the Bureau of Industry and Security of the US Department of Commerce", warning enterprises not to use US AI chips such as NVIDIA to train large Chinese models, such as Huawei Pangu and DeepSeek, otherwise they will bear "serious consequences". The "Industry Guidelines for Preventing the Conversion of Advanced Computing Integrated Circuits" requires enterprises to conduct blockchain evidence storage for the entire life cycle of chips and to review customer backgrounds by releasing "Red Flag Lists" to prevent the resale of chips to China.

In terms of the classification and control of chip performance, BIS divides the controlled chips into three categories: The first category controls high-performance computing chips with a total processing performance (TPP) of 4800TOPS or greater, or 1600TOPS or greater and a performance density of 5.92 or above, mainly used in scenarios such as AI training. The second category controls chips with a total processing performance ranging from 2400 to 4800TOPS and a performance density between 1.6 and 5.92, or chips with a total processing performance above 1600TOPS and a performance density between 3.2 and 5.92, covering mid-to-high-end computing applications. The third category is HBM(High Bandwidth Memory), with a memory bandwidth density greater than 2GB per second per square millimeter. According to this regulation, the Huawei Ascend series will unsurprisingly become the target of control. Take Ascend 910C as an example. This product adopts the 7nm(N+2) manufacturing process of SMIC, has approximately 53 billion transistors, and the half-precision floating-point (FP16) of a single card can reach more than 1200TFlops. It supports 32-bit and 64-bit training, and its inter-card interconnection rate may exceed that of NVIDIA H100. The performance is fully on par with that of the H100. The Ascend 910C began sample testing in September 2024. It is expected to produce 450,000 pieces in 2025. Huawei plans to produce 100,000 pieces of Ascend 910C chips and 300,000 pieces of Ascend 910B chips this year.

In terms of the classification of export restrictions, it is divided into three levels: The first level includes major Allies and partner countries/regions of the United States, which can purchase advanced AI chips from the United States without restrictions. At the second level, approximately 140 countries/regions can obtain up to about 50,000 AI Gpus from 2025 to 2027. Some eligible entities have special procurement permissions. The third level includes about 22 countries and regions such as the Chinese mainland, which almost completely ban the import of advanced AI processors from the United States.

The main legal basis for the United States to implement these controls is the Foreign Direct Products Regulation (FDPR), which holds that the manufacturing process of Ascend chips uses American technology, and thus it has the right to regulate their subsequent circulation. Section 736.2 (b)(10) of the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) defines "engaging in trade knowing that it may violate export control" as illegal, and the scope of "knowing" is broad. The United States expands the boundaries of law enforcement by issuing policy statements. This "explanatory rule" does not require review by Congress but provides a basis for penalties.

The BIS emphasizes that any violation of the above-mentioned relevant prohibitions may lead to enforcement actions by the BIS, involving severe criminal and administrative penalties. According to the regulations of BIS, at the level of criminal penalties, each violation can face up to 20 years in prison, a fine of 1 million US dollars, or both. At the administrative penalty level, the fine amount may be as high as 300,000 US dollars for each violation, or twice the transaction amount (whichever is higher).

The above-mentioned restrictive measures are not only targeted at Huawei. The BIS clearly pointed out that even if the chips are produced overseas, if the parent company or headquarters is located in "embargo countries" such as China, they are still under the control of the United States. This regulation is a manifestation of the United States' "long-arm jurisdiction", aiming to restrict China and other countries from obtaining advanced computing power chip technology from the source and hinder the development of the semiconductor industry and artificial intelligence and other fields in these countries.

For instance, in this way, the United States attempts to cut off the connection between Chinese enterprises and overseas advanced chip R&D and production capabilities. Even if enterprises place their production processes overseas, it is difficult for them to escape its control, thereby maintaining the United States' leading position and technological hegemony in the global semiconductor and artificial intelligence fields.

In response to the above-mentioned semiconductor export control measures, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China stated that the United States has politicized and instrumtized economic, trade and technological issues. Such unilateralist bullying not only seriously infringes upon the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises, undermines the stability of the global industrial and supply chains, but also violates the principles of the market economy and fair competition, hindering global technological progress and economic development. China firmly opposes any country interfering in the normal operation and development of Chinese enterprises under any pretext and in any way. It will take all necessary measures to resolutely safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese enterprises.

* Disclaimer: This article is sourced from the Internet. If there is any dispute, please contact customer service.