The News
The US Department of Commerce opened a probe into Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest contract semiconductor chip maker, amid allegations TSMC sold AI-ready and other advanced chips to China’s Huawei, The Information reported Thursday.
The US has sought for years to ban such sales amid national security concerns, and Huawei itself has been blacklisted in the US since 2012. The ban on chips to Huawei was widened in 2022 to prohibit sales of advanced chips and chip-making equipment to China or Chinese companies as a whole.
The US is reportedly investigating whether Huawei sidestepped the ban using intermediaries to order chips from TSMC, and in turn, whether TSMC’s due diligence lapsed in accepting the orders. In a statement Friday, TSMC said it followed the law and that “it will take prompt action to ensure compliance.”
Know More
The probe comes as US lawmakers have intensified calls to further block Huawei from purchasing American chip equipment, after a leading association of chip companies raised concerns that the Chinese telecom giant was building a network of secret semiconductor factories, Bloomberg reported.
“We must continue in our efforts to deny Huawei, and similar firms, the ability to access US technology,” two US representatives wrote in a letter to the Biden administration. China continues to be “the most active and persistent cyber threat to the US government,” a report from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency warned earlier this year.