Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC now says that it alerted U.S. authorities about reports of its chips being found in products made by Chinese tech company Huawei. It could represent a violation of U.S. export controls aimed at restricting China's access to the most advanced AI technologies.
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00:00Chips made by Taiwanese chip giant TSMC have reportedly been found inside AI products made
00:06by Chinese company Huawei.
00:08Now, TSMC has released a statement about this case, and it says in part that TSMC is in
00:13compliance with export controls and has not supplied to Huawei since September 2020.
00:19It also says that they proactively communicated with US authorities regarding the case and
00:23are not aware of being the subject of any investigation at this time.
00:27Meanwhile, a US Department of Commerce spokesperson said that they are aware of the media reports
00:33but cannot comment on any investigations.
00:35Furthermore, Taiwan's economy minister, JW Guo, told reporters this morning that they
00:40are in full communication with TSMC but declined to elaborate any further.
00:44Now, although it's not officially confirmed, the TSMC product in question was reportedly
00:50found inside Huawei's Ascend 910B processor.
00:55This processor is considered the most advanced AI product made by a Chinese company and is
01:00used to train large language models like ChatGPT.
01:03It's important to note that this kind of product is the exact kind that US export controls
01:08are targeting.
01:09The US wants to limit Chinese development in artificial intelligence because it may
01:14be helpful to the Chinese military, and it also helps preserve the US lead in the technology.
01:21This is important because TSMC is essentially the bottleneck of the AI industry.
01:25It manufactures 90% of the world's most advanced chips, and US export controls can apply to
01:31any company in the world that uses US technology when they manufacture their products, and
01:36that includes TSMC.
01:38Now, even if these allegations turn out to be true, it wouldn't be the first time that
01:42a Chinese company has been able to skirt US export controls.
01:46It's been reported that Chinese companies can easily buy the highest-end chips made
01:49by the US company NVIDIA through third-party brokers in countries like Malaysia.
01:55So the case really demonstrates the difficulty in enforcing these worldwide export controls
02:00and the difficult situation that chipmakers like TSMC are being put in.
02:05Eason Pan and Chris Gorin for Taiwan Plus.