Singapore said it’s boosting enforcement against companies that may be using the country to circumvent foreign nations’ export controls on advanced chips, warning businesses that it may take legal action or impose other penalties.
The Trump administration should reverse a planned $20 million funding cut for the Bureau of Industry and Security, which will hamper the agency’s ability to enforce export controls and weaken American technology competitiveness, a tech policy non-profit said this week.
The Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence criticized the Bureau of Industry and Security's decision last week to add the research organization to the Entity List and urged BIS to remove it (see 2503250075). "Artificial intelligence is a shared resource for humanity, akin to electricity and other transformative technological advancements," the academy said, according to a report from state-run news outlet China Daily. "The US decision contradicts the spirit of scientific innovation and global cooperation, severely undermining openness in AI research and development.” The academy was added for allegedly trying to buy export-controlled U.S. items to develop large AI models and advanced semiconductors for China’s military.
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Four Democratic lawmakers said this week that the Bureau of Industry and Security’s plans to pull back from traditional export control dialogues with allies, including the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council, will reduce international collaboration and make it harder to keep sensitive technology out of the hands of China.
The Bureau of Industry and Security’s recent semiconductor-related export controls could place large burdens not only on exporters but also on BIS enforcement, which will face a host of challenges trying to track whether certain countries have filled their allocated chip quotas, researchers said.
The Bureau of Industry and Security is ending its work in the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council as part of a broader effort to pull back from traditional export control dialogues with allies, Jeffrey Kessler, the head of BIS, said in a closed-door meeting with agency officials last week. Kessler also said the agency plans to significantly increase export enforcement against China, warned about possible staffing cuts, urged officials to tamp down on conversations with industry, and said it’s unclear whether existing export controls against Russia will be maintained.
The U.S. is asking Malaysia to more closely track shipments of advanced semiconductors, including chips made by U.S. firm Nvidia, to make sure they’re not transiting the country before ending up in China in violation of U.S. export controls, the Financial Times reported. Trade Minister Zafrul Aziz said the U.S. is “asking us to make sure that we monitor every shipment that comes to Malaysia when it involves Nvidia chips,” according to the report. “They want us to make sure that servers end up in the data centres that they're supposed to and not suddenly move to another ship." Aziz also said Malaysia recently formed a task force to tighten regulations around the country’s data center sector, which relies on Nvidia chips.
American allies, including the EU, should introduce their own versions of the U.S. foreign direct product rule and the October 2022 U.S. persons controls that restricted additional sensitive semiconductor exports (see 2212210059), the Center for Strategic and International Studies said in a new report.
The U.K. this year plans to update its export controls to align them with changes recently made by the multilateral Wassenaar Arrangement, Nuclear Suppliers Group and Australia Group. The updates include changes to the technical parameters for certain advanced artificial intelligence chip uses; revisions to the definitions for “spacecraft,” “satellite,” “space probe” and “space vehicle”; and more. The U.K. said it plans to make the changes this spring.