Mystery surrounds discovery of TSMC Tech inside Huawei AI chips

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Some of the world’s most-guarded semiconductor technology has ended up in China’s Huawei Technologies’ new artificial-intelligence chips, showing the limits of the U.S.’s broad attempts to thwart such hardware linkups. Core circuitry produced by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co.

was found in Huawei’s Ascend 910B chips, according to people familiar with the matter and TechInsights, a Canada-based research firm that conducts product teardowns which have hit Washington’s radar before. The Huawei AI chip is one of China’s top homegrown alternatives to Nvidia’s high-end offerings that remain off-limits to buyers in China. Some of the technology originates from TSMC, the world’s largest contract-chip manufacturer, whose market capitalization of roughly $1 trillion exceeds that of Tesla and Walmart.

The episode underscores the tall task of stifling China’s tech supply chain, despite a thicket of U.S. export controls and sanctions. Huawei, which has been bolstered by billions of dollars in state support in recent years, has become one of China’s tech national champions and sits at the forefront of the country’s AI ambitions.

Core to the Biden administration’s strategy is impeding China’s efforts in AI, which carry national-security implications because of their potential military applications. The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security said it remained committed to “ensuring compliance" for the China-related export controls with advanced chips and noted it was aware of recent reports of potential violations. The TSMC circuitry in question should be inaccessible to Huawei, which has faced U.S.