US to ban another Huawei-linked company over TSMC chip controversy

US authorities are on their way to ban another Chinese company due to the TSMC-Huawei chip war. After days of investigation, the foreign government has seemingly found the culprit who helped China progress in the AI semiconductor field.

According to Reuters, this culprit is Sophgo. It is a computing power service provider in China, producing AI chipsets such as RISC-V CPUs for native companies.

The Biden administration is now planning to add Sophgo to the US ban list following the Huawei-TSMC chip battle. It believes that the firm has ordered the TSMC-made component itself and then supplied it to Huawei to use in its AI processor.

In recent times, the U.S. has added numerous companies to its Entity list as it found them opposing the trade export rules and other related policies. As of now, Sophgo is on the verge of joining this list due to its alleged bonds with Huawei.

Sophgo ordered a good amount of chips from TSMC this year. But when TechInsights discovered a TSMC-made chip component in the Huawei Ascend 910B AI processor, things took a different turn. TSMC halted chip shipments to Sophgo as it suspected the firm to be a prime supplier of Huawei.

Although Sophgo denied any kind of business ties with Huawei. It said that the firm always complied with the applicable laws and never violated them (read more)

TSMC vs Huawei

Apart from block chip supply, TSMC also informed the US about this matter. As of now, the foreign authorities are planning to punish Sophgo for allegedly helping Huawei. The US has also ordered TSMC to pause the chip shipments for China that could be used in AI products and related applications.

US has been adding several Chinese companies to the Entity List over the “national security” concern. It believes that these firms can use high-end techs and solutions to spy on the country’s confidential data and use it against them.

Even though Huawei has refuted these allegations many times. But the US is constantly triggering it with new rules. The Trump’s return seems a hope but how far it will work for the Chinese companies would be worth looking forward to.

US to ban another Huawei-linked company over TSMC chip controversy (Image Credits: Huawei)

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