At the end of December last year, China's Ministry of Industry issued three separate lists for CPUs, operating systems and centralized databases rated as "safe and reliable", effective within three years after the date of publication. Reuters said that all companies on the list are Chinese.
Among the 18 approved processors, there are chips made by Huawei and Phytium Corporation. Both companies are on Washington's export blacklist. Chinese chipmakers use a mixture of Intel x86, Arm chip architectures as well as other domestic architectures. Regarding the operating system, they use open source Linux software.
Meanwhile, the US is implementing a plan to increase domestic semiconductor production, reducing dependence on China and Taiwan, with the "backbone" being the CHIPS Act passed by Congress in 2022. This is the law. designed to finance domestic manufacturing and advanced chip development subsidies.
China is Intel's largest market in 2023, accounting for 27% of AMD's $54 billion in revenue and 15% of AMD's $23 billion in revenue. Both US chip companies declined to comment on Beijing's regulations.
Procurement of computers running Intel and AMD chips can continue, the central government procurement office said, as long as the components "comply with relevant regulatory procedures".
According to a notice from China's state testing agency, the top criterion to evaluate a chip model as "safe and reliable" is the extent to which the design, development and production process is completed on the mainland. or not. Additionally, companies must submit complete R&D documents and codes about their products to authorities for review.
Lao Zhang Cheng, who was in charge of purchasing 16 "completely Chinese" computers for an organization under the Shaoxing City Department of Transportation, said his colleagues had no other choice but to get used to the system. domestically operated.
“We are replacing old computers running foreign chips. Old devices running Windows can still be used, but only in limited cases," Lao said.
Replacing server processors will happen faster than with PCs because the software ecosystem that needs to be replaced is more limited, said Lin Qingyuan, a chip expert at research group Bernstein.
(According to Reuters, FT)
