The chips are needed to power high-performance computing and artificial intelligence. Those capacities are used for inventing pharmaceuticals, powering chatbots and studying climate change. But U.S. officials maintain that China can also use them to create new weapons systems, run disinformation attacks and surveil persecuted citizens. The Biden administration has steadily tightened its technology restrictions on China, and it is weighing another update to its rules. That has touched off a fight among lawmakers, administration officials and company executives over how much the United States should restrain its own industry.

A congressional committee focused on national security threats from China said it had "grave concerns" about a research partnership between the University of California, Berkeley, and several Chinese entities, claiming that the collaboration's advanced research could help the Chinese government gain an economic, technological or military advantage. In a letter sent last week to Berkeley's president and chancellor, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party requested extensive information about the Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, a collaboration set up in 2014 with China's prestigious Tsinghua University and the Chinese city of Shenzhen. The letter pointed to the institute's research into certain "dual-use technologies" that are employed by both civilian and military institutions, like advanced semiconductors and imaging technology used for mapping terrain or driving autonomous cars. The committee also questioned whether Berkeley had properly disclosed Chinese funding for the institute, and cited its collaborations with Chinese universities and companies that have been the subjects of sanctions by the United States in recent years, like the National University of Defense Technology, the telecom firm Huawei and the Chinese drone maker DJI.

A congressional committee focused on national security threats from China said it had "grave concerns" about a research partnership between the University of California, Berkeley, and several Chinese entities, claiming that the collaboration's advanced research could help the Chinese government gain an economic, technological or military advantage. In a letter sent last week to Berkeley's president and chancellor, the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party requested extensive information about the Tsinghua-Berkeley Shenzhen Institute, a collaboration set up in 2014 with China's prestigious Tsinghua University and the Chinese city of Shenzhen. The letter pointed to the institute's research into certain "dual-use technologies" that are employed by both civilian and military institutions, like advanced semiconductors and imaging technology used for mapping terrain or driving autonomous cars. The committee also questioned whether Berkeley had properly disclosed Chinese funding for the institute, and cited its collaborations with Chinese universities and companies that have been the subjects of sanctions by the United States in recent years, like the National University of Defense Technology, the telecom firm Huawei and the Chinese drone maker DJI.