China's great leap forward in chips faces US pushback

Taipei, Taiwan – China is facing a steeper climb to overtake the United States and its allies in semiconductors as Washington ramps up measures to restrict Beijing's ability to produce advanced chips and secure dominance over the strategic technology. On Wednesday, Washington restricted the sale to China of select Nvidia and AMD advanced graphic processor units (GPUs) used in artificial intelligence applications and supercomputers. The move followed the US Commerce Department's announcement last month of a ban on exports to China of electronic design automation (EDA) software used in the production of next-generation chips. Meanwhile, Washington has been nudging East Asian partners Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan to form a "Chip 4" industry alliance to isolate China from the international tech ecosystem, and bolstered efforts to develop its homegrown industry with the passage of the CHIPS Act, offering $52bn in subsidies to firms that make chips on US soil. "The US is trying to reinforce its central role in the world's semiconductor ecosystem and ensure that China is unable to produce the most cutting edge chips," Chris Miller, author of the upcoming book Chip War: The Fight for the World's Most Critical Technology, told Al Jazeera.