Financial Times: US export controls hit China’s access to Arm’s leading-edge...

By Gabby Chen

Alibaba, the Chinese tech giant, cannot buy some of the most advanced chip designs after Arm determined that the US and UK would not approve licences to export the technology to China, reported Financial Times on December 14.

The British company concluded that the US and UK would not approve the sale of its latest Neoverse V series because the performance was too high, according to people with knowledge of the sales process. The move impacts Alibaba’s T-Head chip unit and other Chinese groups.

Arm said that as a global company it was “committed to adhering to all applicable export laws and regulations in the jurisdictions in which it operates”.

It is the first known time that Arm, owned by Japanese tech investor SoftBank, has decided it could not export its most cutting-edge designs to China, said the FT report.

Neoverse V falls under Wassenaar — a multilateral arrangement involving 42 nations designed to stop dual-use technology from being diverted for military use — but Arm would need US and UK export licences to sell the technology.

Paul Triolo, a China and technology expert at the Albright Stonebridge Group consultancy, told Financial Times that the US commerce department’s October 7 export controls also updated restrictions in ways that impacted the kind of technology Arm produces.

“Key companies in the semiconductor supply chain, including IP core players such as Arm . . . must determine whether the capabilities provided in their offerings meet or exceed the technical requirements in the new [October 7] commerce regulations,” said Triolo.

While Arm could apply for licences to sell the technology, the odds of success are very low given the US strategy to deny China technology that could have military applications. When the US introduced the new measures in October, it stressed that there would be a presumption to deny licences to export technology related to advanced chips to China, according to the FT report.

Meanwhile, Arm’s intellectual property underpins the majority of chips around the world and is used by most companies developing leading-edge technologies, said the report.

Ratcheting tensions between China and the US have already compelled some Chinese chip companies to look at using an increasingly sophisticated open-source alternative to Arm’s designs called RISC-V.

Drew Henry, executive vice president of strategy and marketing at Arm, said at a media sharing meeting in China’s Taiwan region that Arm expects to provide architecture solutions in accordance with customer needs on the basis of meeting the latest international norms, and RISC-V will bring virtuous competition.

The UK government said it does not comment on individual licence applications but noted it is “committed to supporting UK businesses and academia to engage with China in a way that reflects the UK’s values and takes account of national security concerns”.