The US recently added new entities into its trade blacklist, which were from Chinese origin. Now, the impact of these sanctions are already showing effects as TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company ) has suspended new chip orders from one of the newly blacklisted firms.
According to a SCMP report, the world’s largest contract chip maker has stopped taking orders from Phytium Information Technology Co, which is one of the seven Chinese supercomputing related firms that were added to the US Entity List last week. As per a source close to the matter, the company will complete any existing orders that were placed before the Chinese firms were added to the blacklist over national security allegations.
Furthermore, a TSMC representative decline to comment on the matter but did state that the company would “abide by all the laws and regulations as always, and will operate according to the export restrictions.” Meanwhile, Phytium has yet to offer any statement regarding this matter. At the moment, while China is investing heavily in the development of its local semiconductor technology, it is still reliant on foreign technology and chips from overseas.
The nation’s supercomputers use processors made by tech giants like Intel, AMD, and IBM. According to Francis Lau, a computer science professor at the University of Hong Kong, “The sanctions would definitely affect China’s ability to keep to its leading position in supercomputing because all current supercomputers use mostly US-built components. Although there are alternatives made by other countries such as Japan and [South] Korea, the best components are still by the US.”
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