SMIC will be added to an export blacklist alongside more than 60 other Chinese institutions
Photo: aly song/Reuters
The Trump administration is adding China’s largest manufacturer of computing chips to an export blacklist, restricting the company’s access to high-end technology over its alleged links it to the Chinese military.
Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp., or SMIC, will be added alongside more than 60 other Chinese institutions to the entity list, the Commerce Department said. The designation restricts companies from exporting U.S.-origin technology to the listed firms without a license, with a provision that effectively prohibits SMIC from acquiring technology to build chips with 10-nanometer circuits and smaller, the industry’s top class of chips.
The move raises the pressure significantly on the chip maker, a national champion that has received billions of dollars in state backing and is central to Beijing’s drive to improve the country’s self-sufficiency in critical technologies. It comes during the waning weeks of the Trump administration and follows a string of actions against Chinese tech companies.
Two days ago, the chip manufacturer said it was looking into reports that one of its two co-chief executives had suddenly decided to step down, a disclosure that sent its shares tumbling.
Commerce Department officials said they applied the restriction on SMIC because of what they said was the company’s cooperation with Chinese military-linked entities. The Trump administration has grown more concerned about Beijing’s practice of leaning on civilian companies to advance its military goals, an effort known as military-civil fusion.
A SMIC representative didn’t immediately comment. SMIC has repeatedly denied any links to China’s military and has said that it produces chips solely for commercial and civilian use.
“Entity List restrictions are a necessary measure to ensure that China, through its national champion SMIC, is not able to leverage U.S. technologies to enable indigenous advanced technology levels to support its destabilizing military activities,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement provided to The Wall Street Journal.
Write to Dan Strumpf at [email protected]
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