U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Republican Senator John Cornyn are lobbying hard for a ban on government business with Chinese chipmakers, Politico reports.
The senators want to get their amendment which blocks federal access to semiconductor products and services made by Chinese firms, into the final version of this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
The measure would broaden provisions in Section 889 that already prohibit government agencies from doing business with Chinese telecommunications companies or contractors who use their technologies.
Section 889 mainly targets Chinese conglomerates like Huawei or ZTE.
But the Schumer-Cornyn measure would grow the targeted list to include the Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., Yangtze Memory Technologies Corp., and ChangXin Memory Technologies.
YMTC has come under increased scrutiny for violating export controls by continuing to supply chips to Huawei Technologies Co, Ltd and aiming to do business with Apple IncAAPL.
Alibaba Group Holding LimitedBABA and start-up Biren Technology tweaked their most advanced chip designs to reduce processing speeds and bypass U.S.-imposed sanctions.
Alibaba, Biren, and other Chinese design houses have spent years and millions of dollars creating the blueprints for advanced processors to power the country’s next generation of supercomputers, artificial intelligence algorithms, and data centers.
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