US Escalates Chip Curbs on China, Extending to AI and PCs

Reuters' latest report pointed out that the Biden administration has recently adjusted the existing rules out of consideration for national security, in order to more strictly restrict China's access to American artificial intelligence (AI) chips and chip manufacturing equipment. The revised rules explicitly state that laptops containing these chips will also be subject to export controls on AI chips targeting China.

This 166-page revised rule will officially take effect on April 4th. This move is another important measure taken by the US government to restrict the development of Beijing's chip manufacturing industry in order to protect national security. The US Department of Commerce emphasized that they will continue to update technology export controls to China to ensure that these measures are more comprehensive and effective.

This move comes after the Biden administration announced extensive chip export control policies towards China in October 2022, successfully persuading the Netherlands and Japan to take similar measures. By October 2023, the US further introduced new regulations to impose stricter restrictions on the export of high-performance AI chips to China. However, this broad securitization behavior under the name of national security has also raised questions and criticisms from various parties.

It is worth noting that this revision of the US AI chip export restriction rules coincides with the global surge in the concept of AI PCs. The industry generally believes that the combination of AI and PCs is an inevitable trend in industrial development. From upstream chip companies to operating system manufacturers, to downstream computer terminal manufacturers, all are actively investing in order to seize the initiative in this emerging market. According to market research firm Canalys, the global shipment volume of AI PCs will exceed 170 million units by 2027, accounting for over 60% of the total PC shipments. 2024 is even more anticipated by the industry and is hailed as the "Year of AI PCs".

However, the further tightening of AI chip export control policies by the United States undoubtedly brings uncertainty to the development of the global AI PC industry. R&D personnel from PC manufacturers have expressed that this policy adjustment will undoubtedly have an impact on the PC industry. The reporter inquired about this matter with several domestic PC manufacturers, but as of the time of publication, no response has been received.

Luoguozhao, the director of CHIP Global Testing Center China Laboratory, stated in an interview that AI PCs, as a new concept, include both high-end AI PCs and AI PCs targeting ordinary consumers. Among them, the latter is the AI PC concept currently being vigorously promoted by enterprises such as AMD, Intel, and Microsoft. These products mainly focus on energy-efficient laptops. Luoguozhao speculates that the US's control upgrade this time may mainly target high-end AI PCs rather than AI PCs targeting ordinary consumers.

He pointed out that as the world's largest computer terminal market, China is of great importance to US chip companies such as Intel and AMD. Therefore, the Biden administration is unlikely to take measures that harm the interests of its own companies. In October last year, the US Department of Commerce had already blacklisted two Chinese AI chip companies. Luoguozhao believes that the new regulations are likely to restrict these companies from shifting from the cloud and cluster fields to the high-performance personal computing field.

Although the specific details of the US Department of Commerce's control upgrade are still uncertain, Luoguozhao believes that based on the current trend, the US's new policy is unlikely to have a significant impact on AI PC products targeting ordinary consumers. However, this also reveals that the US's suppression of China in the field of AI applications for high-performance computing is continuously strengthening, limiting China's development through comprehensive screening and blocking.