US to ‘choke off’ China’s access to key computer chips

President Joe Biden's Commerce Department will hit China with new restrictions on shipments of semiconductors to China next month.

New Commerce Department regulations will require further licenses for computer chip giants like Nvidia Corp and Micro Devices to deliver chips to China, particularly powerful artificial intelligence chips, Reuters reported Monday. The Biden administration is reportedly in the process of drafting letters informing relevant companies of the regulations changes.

The final letters may include additional actions against China, according to Reuters. The Commerce Department resorts to such letters as a means of getting around the formal regulation process, but in such cases, the changes only affect companies directly contacted by the department.

"The strategy is to choke off China and they have discovered that chips are a choke point. They can't make this stuff, they can't make the manufacturing equipment," Jim Lewis, a technology expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Reuters. "That will change."