Biden administration warned China to expect updated export curbs in October: Report

The US had warned China of its plans to update rules on export of the AI chips and chipmaking tools as soon as early October, an official told Reuters news agency.

The US Commerce Department, which oversees export controls, is working on an update of export restrictions first released last year.

Now, the Biden administration aims to limit access to more chipmaking tools in line with new Dutch and Japanese rules and to close some loopholes in export restrictions on artificial intelligence (AI) chips.

According to the US officials, they provided information to Chinese counterparts in recent weeks regarding the curb shipments of AI chips and chipmaking tools to Chinese counterparts in recent weeks. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also gave Chinese officials a warning in July about restrictions on US investment in China released in August.

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In a bid to stabilise relations with China, the Biden administration decided to give heads up about the rules to China.

The restrictions released last October sought to prevent U.S. technology from being used to strengthen the Chinese military by cutting off its access to advanced AI chips and curbing its ability to import the most sophisticated chipmaking tools from the United States.

The Biden administration is hoping to clinch Chinese President Xi Jinping’s attendance at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco in November, too, an effort which also has weighed on the timing of the upcoming export rules’ release.

Biden and Xi have not met in person since a G20 summit on Indonesia’s resort island of Bali in November last year.

Meanwhile, the upcoming US rules could hit ASML, the world’s leading chip equipment maker and Netherlands’ largest company, because its systems contain US parts and components.

America, the Netherlands, and Japan, which together control the world’s top chipmaking equipment, agreed to coordinate efforts earlier this year.