U.S. Said to Plan New Limits on China’s A.I. and Supercomputing Firms

The Biden administration is expected to announce new measures to restrict Chinese companies from accessing technologies that enable high- performance computing, according to several people familiar with the matter.

Some of the most significant steps taken by the Biden administration to cut off China's access to advanced Semiconductor technology could be announced this week. They would follow in the footsteps of the Trump-era rule that hit a blow to the Chinese telecom giant by prohibiting companies around the world from sending products made with the use of American technology.

According to two people with knowledge of the plans, a number of Chinese firms, government research labs, and other entities are expected to face restrictions similar to the ones faced byHuawei. Any firm that uses American-made technologies will not be allowed to sell to the Chinese entities that the administration is targeting. It is not known which Chinese firms would be affected.

The foreign direct product rule is just one part of Washington's plans. The sale of cutting-edge U.S. made tools to China is expected to be controlled by the administration.

The people said that the US would limit the sale of U.S.-made chips to China. The limitation could make it difficult for major academic institutions and internet firms to get the parts they need to build leading data centers.

The cap could affect China's ability to develop the number crunching technology that forms the building block of innovations across an array of fields.

Several people familiar with the discussions said that administration officials are looking at other measures that could apply to the Chinese company.

The White House wouldn't say anything about the restrictions. The Bureau of Industry and Security at the Commerce Department has authority over the types of technology that can be exported from the United States.

The measures would be the strongest push to date by the United States to hit at China. Many Chinese universities, state-run companies and internet firms have supercomputers. Analysts and researchers have shown how others are used for more malign purposes, despite the fact that plenty are used for important tasks.

China has used some of the world's most powerful computers to spy on ethnic minorities. Next- generation weapons that could evade American defenses have been designed using others.

In the western Chinese region of Xinjiang, where hundreds of thousands of minority Uyghurs have been interned and surveilled, a supercomputer built with chips made by Intel and Nvidia has been used to process footage. The two companies said they weren't aware of the misuse of their technology.

Efforts by the U.S. government to curb the flow of technology to projects like these have been frustrated by the wide availability of powerful chips.

Many of the products that are sold to China are manufactured outside of the U.S. The foreign direct product rule prevents products made anywhere in the world with the help of the US from being sold to China.

China has access to cutting-edge U.S. technology, and the Biden administration has been criticized for not moving fast enough to stop it. The need for more expansive regulation in the industry was underscored by China's recent progress in clearing a key technological hurdle.

The administration has been galvanized by Beijing's aggressive behavior towards Taiwan, which produces almost all of the world's advanced Semiconductor.

Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, said at the White House last month that the US government had tried to stay a few generations ahead of competitors in certain key technologies.

He said that we must maintain as large of a lead as possible.

According to the Biden administration, the use of export controls will cripple Russia's defense, technology, energy and other critical sectors in the long run. The same tool can be used to address national security challenges in other countries. The officials say that the export controls used by the Trump administration were a good example of how to create controls on Russian companies.

There were new restrictions on the sale of computer chips to China and Russia. The limits were on high-end models of chips sold by Silicon Valley companies. The products used to render images in video games have become important for large computers that are used to train artificial intelligence.

According to Paul Triolo, senior vice president for China at Albright Stonebridge Group, the move was probably the strongest regulatory and export control statement that the U.S. government has made.

Mr Triolo said that the administration was putting its foot down.