Taiwan Blacklists China's Huawei, Smic; Tightens Chip Export Controls Amid Us-china Tensions

Taiwan has placed Chinese tech giants Huawei Technologies and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) connected its export power list, a move that brings nan island’s waste and acquisition argumentation further successful statement pinch nan United States and could importantly effect China’s ambitions successful artificial intelligence spot development.

The update to Taiwan’s “Strategic High-Tech Commodities Entity List” was confirmed by nan island's International Trade Administration and intends that section firms must now get authorities support earlier exporting delicate technologies, materials, aliases instrumentality to Huawei, SMIC, aliases their subsidiaries. According to Bloomberg, this regularisation could hold China’s efforts to build precocious AI semiconductors, arsenic some firms suffer entree to captious Taiwanese works building technologies and semiconductor equipment.

The updated list, published connected Sunday, now includes entities antecedently associated pinch world information threats, specified arsenic nan Taliban and al-Qaeda, arsenic good arsenic firms based successful Iran and China, nan Associated Press (AP) reported.

Both companies are already blacklisted by nan US authorities and look sweeping American restrictions connected entree to precocious chips and manufacturing tools. Taiwan’s largest chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), has agelong adhered to US export rules and has faced scrutiny complete its past dealings pinch Chinese firms.

In October 2024, a contention erupted erstwhile investigation patient TechInsights discovered a TSMC-manufactured spot wrong a Huawei AI training card. Following nan revelation, nan US Commerce Department reportedly ordered TSMC to trim disconnected Chinese clients’ entree to AI-specific chips, according to Reuters. The institution could besides look a good of up to $1 cardinal successful relationship pinch a US investigation into nan incident.

Huawei has since attempted to create homegrown alternatives to Nvidia’s GPU offerings, aiming to proviso AI chips domestically. However, experts judge nan Chinese tech ecosystem continues to struggle pinch limitations successful scale, technological maturity, and proviso concatenation constraints owed to ongoing export controls.

Taiwan’s determination comes amid increasing geopolitical strain pinch Beijing. While China claims nan self-ruled land arsenic its territory, nan US remains Taiwan’s largest unofficial state and arms supplier, further complicating nan island’s strategical position successful nan world semiconductor proviso chain.

Taiwan is besides location to TSMC, nan world’s largest statement chipmaker and a cardinal supplier to companies for illustration Nvidia. The country’s latest export power update reinforces its alignment pinch US argumentation astatine a clip erstwhile spot exertion has go a cardinal beforehand successful nan broader struggle betwixt Washington and Beijing complete technological dominance.

Published on: Jun 16, 2025 11:34 AM IST