China Seeks AI Chip Export Control Easing in Trade Deal Talks
China is pushing the United States to relax export constraints on vital chips for artificial intelligence, aiming for trade concessions ahead of a possible meeting involving Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. This request, revealed by the Financial Times, emphasizes Beijing’s call to ease restrictions on high-bandwidth memory chips.
White House, State Department, and China’s foreign ministry have so far refrained from commenting on the matter. High-bandwidth memory chips (HBM) play a crucial role in executing data-heavy AI operations rapidly, which attracts substantial attention from investors due to their integration with AI graphics processors, notably those from Nvidia.
According to FT, China perceives the existing U.S. controls on HBM as obstructing Chinese firms like Huawei from advancing their AI chip development efforts. Past U.S. administrations have limited the export of sophisticated chips to China, aiming to impede Beijing’s AI and defense advancements. While this limitation has impacted U.S. companies in fulfilling the surging Chinese demand for chips, a significant sector in the global semiconductor arena, it remains a key revenue stream for American chipmakers.
