US President Donald Trump’s administration has further cracked down on Chinese technology giants, issuing warnings against the consumption of Chinese AI chips, leading to criminal penalties under the US export control laws.
The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) said in a statement that on 13 May, the Department of Commerce (DOC) rescinded former US President Biden’s AI Diffusion Rule and announced additional steps to “strengthen export controls on semiconductors” globally.
The AI Diffusion Rule, which was issued in January 2025, had compliance requirements set to take effect on May 15, 2025. As per BIS, the AI Diffusion Rule could have damaged US diplomatic relationships with several countries by reducing their status to second-tier.
Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Jeffery Kessler said the Trump Administration will pursue a bold, inclusive strategy to American AI technology with trusted foreign countries worldwide while keeping the technology out of the hands of our adversaries.
“We reject the Biden Administration’s attempt to impose its own ill-conceived and counterproductive AI policies on the American people,” Kessler said.
The guidance released by the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) of the US Department of Commerce specified that Huawei's Ascend processors, namely the 910B, 910C, and 910D, are subject to stringent export restrictions due to suspicions that they are created or produced utilising technology from the US.
As reported earlier by AIM, Huawei contacted various tech companies late last month to prepare to test its new AI chip, the Ascend 910D, in China. The move came as Huawei sought to replace some of NVIDIA’s high-end processors following Washington’s tightening of semiconductor export restrictions to China.
The BIS also announced that it intends to alert the public regarding the possible repercussions of permitting US AI chips to be utilised for training and inference of Chinese AI models.
The guidance from the Commerce Department is expected to complicate Huawei's efforts to create more advanced chips for AI and smartphones further, which are initiatives that have already faced significant obstacles due to US sanctions.
As Bloomberg reported, the Trump administration imposed restrictions on Huawei Technologies in 2019 due to espionage worries, nearly destroying the Chinese firm's chip market. However, it recovered with backing from the Chinese government and is now a key player in the country’s initiatives to attain technological self-sufficiency away from Western influence.
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