US lawmakers press Biden for plans on Chinese use of open chip technology

[Daniel Nenni]

Semiconductor chips are seen on a printed circuit board in this illustration picture taken February 17, 2023.

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 2 (Reuters) - A wider bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers is asking the Biden administration about its plans to respond to China's rising use of RISC-V chip design technology after Reuters last month reported on growing concerns about it in both houses of Congress.

RISC-V, pronounced "risk five," is a free open-source technology that competes with costly proprietary technology from British semiconductor and software design company Arm Holdings (O9Ty.F), and Intel Corp (INTC.O). It can be used as a key part of anything from a smartphone chip to advanced processors for artificial intelligence.

U.S. firms such as Qualcomm (QCOM.O) and Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) Google have embraced RISC-V, but so too have many Chinese companies.
Reuters last month reported that at least four influential U.S. lawmakers view Chinese use of the technology as a potential national security threat because RISC-V is not captured by the sweeping export controls the U.S. has imposed on sending chip technology to China.

Now, a broader group of 18 lawmakers that includes five Democrats is asking the Biden administration for how it plans to prevent China "from achieving dominance in ... RISC-V technology and leveraging that dominance at the expense of U.S. national and economic security," according to a letter the group sent to Raimondo and seen by Reuters.

The lawmakers include the Republican chairman and ranking Democrat from a select committee on China in the House of Representatives as well as Democratic lawmakers from New Jersey, Florida, Michigan and Indiana. They also asked the Biden administration about how it might apply an existing executive order to require U.S. companies to get an export license before working with Chinese companies on RISC-V technology.

US lawmakers press Biden for plans on Chinese use of open chip technology

A wider bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers is asking the Biden administration about its plans to respond to China's rising use of RISC-V chip design technology after Reuters last month reported on growing concerns about it in both houses of Congress.

www.reuters.com

 

[blueone]

It would be interesting to know which US companies have contributed IP back to the RISC-V Foundation version of the specification. I think the answer is probably zero. I also suspect that if there are US-based spec contributors they are either employees or students at US universities. I'm not sure how to test my theories. Restricting research probably hurts the US as much as China.

I wonder if these same lawmakers also think Linux and various open source HPC and AI software products are also worth restricting? Are the Chinese prevented from downloading Linux, Intel's MPI library, or OpenHPC's downloads? Focusing on RISC-V is probably not productive in the grand scheme of HPC.

 

[tonyget]

I suspect that these US politicians think that the US can restrict China from using C++ as well，haha

 

[Daniel Nenni]

I suspect that these US politicians think that the US can restrict China from using C++ as well，haha

In my experience "where there's a will there is a way" and China has a very strong will. I would say there are many more RISC-V design starts in China than the US so I'm not sure why they need us.

I will be at the RISC-V Summit next week. I will ask around but to me this is a nothing burger.

 

[coldsolder215]

These paranoid old freaks really crack me up. Soon they'll be going after IEEE for publishing R&D that could potentially be used against us.

 

[Daniel Nenni]

Alibaba’s chip design unit launches RISC-V chip for cloud flash storage

Alibaba’s chip design subsidiary T-Head has launched a RISC-V-based controller integrated circuit that will boost the input and output performance of its cloud data centres.

www.scmp.com

Alibaba unveils open-source RISC-V tech chip for use in AI, cloud data centers

Alibaba's chip design unit launched a RISC-V-based controller chip for server storage, and AI capabilities. Read more here

seekingalpha.com

 

[blueone]

I suspect that these US politicians think that the US can restrict China from using C++ as well，haha

I'm not a C++ fan at all. As far as I'm concerned if the US government wants to hamper China's software development projects they should encourage the Chinese to use the language as much as possible.

 

[cliff]

Our guys have been using C++ for years. You're right. They take too long. We should have stuck with Fortran.

 

[Jozo035]

I suspect that these US politicians think that the US can restrict China from using C++ as well，haha

Some specific compilers and/or libraries were restricted before it was even cool.