WASHINGTON - Republican US lawmakers on April 12 criticised the Biden administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence chip.
The United States placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 over sanctions violations related to Iran, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances.
Placement on the list means the company’s US suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain licence before shipping to it.
One such licence, issued by the Trump administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners had urged the Biden administration to revoke that licence, but there was acceptance by many that it would expire later in 2024 and not be renewed.
Huawei’s unveiling on April 11 of its first AI-enabled laptop, the MateBook X Pro powered by Intel’s new Core Ultra 9 processor, shocked and angered them, because it suggested to them that the Commerce Department had approved shipments of the new chip to Huawei.
“One of the greatest mysteries in Washington, DC, is why the Department of Commerce continues to allow US technology to be shipped to Huawei,” Republican Representative Michael Gallagher, who chairs the House of Representatives Select Committee on China, said in a statement to Reuters.
Republican Representative Elise Stefanik said in a post on social media platform X that the laptop “makes it clear” that the Commerce Department gave a green light to shipments to Huawei of the new chip.
“It is unacceptable that the Biden administration is actively working to undermine US national security by allowing our greatest strategic adversary access to cutting-edge American technology,” Ms Stefanik said.
The Commerce Department declined to comment. Huawei and Intel did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Another Republican Representative, Mr Michael McCaul, echoed Ms Stefanik’s comments in an e-mailed statement to Reuters. “These approvals must stop,” he said. “Two years ago, I was told licences to Huawei would stop. Today, it doesn’t seem as though the policy has changed.”
A source familiar with the matter said the chips were shipped under an existing licence. They are not covered by recent broad-cased restrictions on AI chip shipments to China, the source and another person said.
The reaction is a sign of growing pressure on the Biden administration to do more to thwart Huawei’s rise, nearly five years after it was added to a trade restriction list.
In August 2023, it shocked the world with a new phone powered by a sophisticated chip manufactured by sanctioned Chinese chipmaker SMIC, becoming a symbol of China’s technological resurgence despite Washington’s ongoing efforts to cripple its capacity to produce advanced semiconductors. REUTERS
