Huawei – a company at the centre of China’s AI chip ambitions that has been accused of sanctions busting and trade secret theft – is on a US trade list that restricts it from receiving goods made with US technology.
TSMC made nearly 3 million chips in recent years that matched the design ordered by Sophgo and likely ended up with Huawei, according to Lennart Heim, a researcher at RAND’s Technology and Security and Policy Centre in Arlington, Virginia, who is tracking Chinese developments in AI.
The US$1 billion-plus potential penalty came from export control regulations allowing for a fine of up to twice the value of transactions that violated the rules, the sources said. Because TSMC’s chipmaking equipment includes US technology, the company’s Taiwan factories are within reach of US export controls that prevent it from making chips for Huawei, or producing certain advanced chips for any customer in China without a US licence.
