The new Cold War » China's Big Fund | The CHIPS Act | America's fab renaissance | Roots of the conflict | The impact in 2023 | The impact in 2022
Semiconductors power everything from PCs and data centers to cars, lightbulbs, and refrigerators. Control over their manufacture means control over billions of dollars and the world economy -- and the US, China, Taiwan, and others are waging a geopolitical battle for exactly that. Welcome to the chip war.
Major moments
Dec. 2, 2024: The DOC ratcheted up sanctions to curtail China's AI and military tech, this time entirely blocking shipments of HBM memory to China.
May 8, 2024: The U.S. government has withdrawn select export licenses from Intel and Qualcomm, effectively preventing them from supplying processors to Huawei.
Mar. 9, 2024: China is assembling the third phase of its Big Fund investment in semiconductor projects, a $27 billion investment to counter U.S. sanctions.
Jan. 27, 2024: The DOC introduced a proposal to prevent foreign entities, particularly from China, from using U.S. cloud computing for AI model training, a new level to the conflict.
Nov. 02, 2023: The Nvidia RTX 4090 -- The fastest gaming GPU -- will no longer be available for export to China starting Nov. 17.
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Oct. 24, 2023: The DOC sped up the implementation of its latest export curbs, immediately blocking Nvidia from shipping A100, A800, H100, H800, and L40S GPUs to China.
Oct. 7, 2023: Senators Marco Rubio and Mark Warner demand a limit to China's access to American RISC-V innovations.
Aug. 10, 2023: President Joe Biden signed an executive order restricting U.S. investments in Chinese tech sectors, including AI, semiconductors, and quantum computing.
Aug. 01, 2022: The U.S. extended its ban on chipmaking equipment produced by domestic firms that are sold to Chinese companies.
Dec. 18, 2020: The DOC blacklisted SMIC along with 60 other Chinese companies citing ties with the Chinese People's Liberation Army.
Latest about chip war
Lenovo expands PC production in India
Lenovo announced that it will move 100% of its laptop manufacturing capacity to India in the next three years.
China doubles US research output on next-gen chips
China is far outpacing US-based studies on next-gen chip technologies, with PRC-based authors making up 50% of the top-cited microchip research essays since 2018.
Netherlands tightens export controls on sanctioned semiconductor equipment
The Netherlands expands its export controls on measuring and inspection equipment to ensure that ASML applies for licenses locally, not in the U.S.
Trump nominee favors ‘destroying TSMC’ if China invades Taiwan
The next U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Policy is very likely to be Elbridge Colby, who is well known to favor the destruction of Taiwan’s chip fabs in the event of a Chinese invasion.
China’s top developer of chip design systems hands reins to state-owned firm
China's IC tool makers seek aid to survive a Washington DC offensive
U.S. ratchets up sanctions to curtail China's AI and military tech — no more HBM memory for China
U.S. sanctions designed to restrict China's ability to import technologies to advance of its AI and military capabilities have been strengthened for the third time.
US to reportedly sanction 200 more Chinese chip firms — high bandwidth memory might also see export bans
The latest round of US sanctions imposes tighter control over the export of US technology to 200 more chip makers in China.
