The administration of U.S. President Joe Biden is considering closing a loophole that gives Chinese companies access to American artificial intelligence (AI) chips through units located overseas, according to four people familiar with the matter.
The United States last year shook relations with Beijing when it unveiled new restrictions on shipments of AI chips and chipmaking tools to China, seeking to thwart its military advances. Those rules are set to be tightened in the coming days. A person familiar with the situation said the measure could be included in those new restrictions.
In the initial round of curbs, the Biden administration left overseas subsidiaries of Chinese companies with unfettered access to the same semiconductors, meaning they could easily be smuggled into China or accessed remotely by China-based users.