The new Cold War » China's Big Fund | The CHIPS Act | America's fab renaissance | Roots of the conflict | The impact in 2023 | The impact in 2022
Semiconductors power everything from PCs and data centers to cars, lightbulbs, and refrigerators. Control over their manufacture means control over billions of dollars and the world economy -- and the US, China, Taiwan, and others are waging a geopolitical battle for exactly that. Welcome to the chip war.
Major moments
Dec. 2, 2024: The DOC ratcheted up sanctions to curtail China's AI and military tech, this time entirely blocking shipments of HBM memory to China.
May 8, 2024: The U.S. government has withdrawn select export licenses from Intel and Qualcomm, effectively preventing them from supplying processors to Huawei.
Mar. 9, 2024: China is assembling the third phase of its Big Fund investment in semiconductor projects, a $27 billion investment to counter U.S. sanctions.
Jan. 27, 2024: The DOC introduced a proposal to prevent foreign entities, particularly from China, from using U.S. cloud computing for AI model training, a new level to the conflict.
Nov. 02, 2023: The Nvidia RTX 4090 -- The fastest gaming GPU -- will no longer be available for export to China starting Nov. 17.
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Oct. 24, 2023: The DOC sped up the implementation of its latest export curbs, immediately blocking Nvidia from shipping A100, A800, H100, H800, and L40S GPUs to China.
Oct. 7, 2023: Senators Marco Rubio and Mark Warner demand a limit to China's access to American RISC-V innovations.
Aug. 10, 2023: President Joe Biden signed an executive order restricting U.S. investments in Chinese tech sectors, including AI, semiconductors, and quantum computing.
Aug. 01, 2022: The U.S. extended its ban on chipmaking equipment produced by domestic firms that are sold to Chinese companies.
Dec. 18, 2020: The DOC blacklisted SMIC along with 60 other Chinese companies citing ties with the Chinese People's Liberation Army.
Latest about chip war
China’s top developer of chip design systems hands reins to state-owned firm
China's IC tool makers seek aid to survive a Washington DC offensive
U.S. ratchets up sanctions to curtail China's AI and military tech — no more HBM memory for China
U.S. sanctions designed to restrict China's ability to import technologies to advance of its AI and military capabilities have been strengthened for the third time.
US to reportedly sanction 200 more Chinese chip firms — high bandwidth memory might also see export bans
The latest round of US sanctions imposes tighter control over the export of US technology to 200 more chip makers in China.
Sanctioned China firms creating front companies to acquire AI chips, says report
America's ban on high-tech exports to China doesn't isn't always very effective in stopping the flow of the latest chips into the country.
New US government rules to allow export of some equipment to China by ASML, Tokyo Electron
The U.S. intends to add 120 Chinese entities to its Entity List, to close loopholes that enable Chinese chipmakers to obtain American chipmaking tools.
DJI drone ban dropped by the U.S. Senate
The ‘Countering CCP Drones Act’ which would ban all DJI drone sales in the U.S. has been shot down by the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee from its version of the NDAA.
Trump says Taiwan should pay US for defense — 'They did take about 100% of our chip business'
In a Bloomberg interview, former President Donald Trump said that the US should be paid to protect Taiwan from China, and highlighted the island's dominance in chipmaking.
US, China Chip War may continue for decades, says former ASML CEO
The Chip War is fought over ideology, not factual basis, says tech boss
