Huawei's release of a phone called the Mate 60 Pro has the industrial security community atwitter, if we can still use that word. The device boasts a processor fabricated at seven nanometers, a threshold of precision the allied export controls of chipmaking equipment were meant to thwart.
US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the US needed to get “more information," as did BIS officials.
“We are working to obtain more information on the character and composition of the purported 7nm chip,” a Commerce spokesperson said in a statement. “Let’s be clear: export controls are just one tool in the U.S. government’s toolbox to address the national security threats presented by the PRC. The restrictions in place since 2019 have knocked Huawei down and forced it to reinvent itself — at a substantial cost to the PRC government.
Commerce should ban all technology exports to Huawei and SMIC Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI) said on Wednesday. "This chip likely could not be produced without US technology and thus SMIC may have violated the Department of Commerce’s Foreign Direct Product Rule," said the chair of the House of Representatives' China committee. "The time has come to end all U.S. technology exports to both Huawei and SMIC to make clear any firm that flouts U.S. law and undermines our national security will be cut off from our technology.
Huawei was placed on a trade blacklist in May 2019. SMIC was added to the entity list in December 2020
In June, The Financial Times identified Huawei as a participant in 11 projects under the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation program, funding Huawei to run cutting-edge research on next-generation communication systems, even though several European governments have banned the Chinese tech group from their telecoms networks.
State employees across China have been told in recent weeks to stop using Apple iPhones as part of a Beijing-led pushback. Apple is widely expected to announce the use of a 3nm chip, made by contract manufacturer Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, in its latest model, iPhone 15
US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emmanuel shared with reporters of the Wall Street Journal a more sanguine view from 30,000 feet.
"My view is keep doing what you're doing. You're the one with 30% unemployment among youth, not us. You got 10 years of housing with nobody in it. You got people that are getting fleeced by the big developers and the banks. You got municipalities in China that makes Chicago look like a AAA-rated bond. Keep at it. There is nothing the United States is doing to you that measures what you've done to yourself. We didn't do any of that."
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