Key Points
- China has banned the Canadian research firm TechInsights, citing national security.
- The ban prohibits anyone in China from sharing information with the company.
- TechInsights is a leading source of analysis on China’s secretive chip industry.
- The ban comes just days after TechInsights revealed that Huawei’s latest AI chips use foreign components.
Beijing has banned the well-known semiconductor research firm TechInsights from working with any Chinese companies or individuals. The move, announced by China’s Commerce Ministry on Thursday, cites “national security concerns” and is a major blow to the transparency of the country’s secretive chip industry.
TechInsights, a Canadian company, is a leading source of in-depth analysis on Chinese-made chips. It was one of the first to report on breakthroughs by companies like Huawei. Now, under the new ban, no one in China is allowed to share any information with the firm.
The timing of the ban is significant. It comes less than a week after TechInsights published a report revealing that Huawei’s latest AI chips contain components that were sourced from outside of mainland China. The report suggested that Huawei is still reliant on technology from foreign companies like Samsung and TSMC, despite U.S. sanctions and Beijing’s massive push for a self-sufficient supply chain.
This is a sensitive topic for Beijing. Huawei has been at the forefront of China’s efforts to develop its own alternatives to U.S. chip giant Nvidia, and the TechInsights report criticized those efforts.
By banning a key independent research firm, China is making it much harder for the outside world to understand what’s really going on inside its rapidly developing but highly opaque chip industry.
