China has introduced new rules that ban the use of American AMD and Intel processors in government computers and servers, and block Microsoft Windows and foreign databases in favor of domestic solutions, reports Financial Times.
From now on, government agencies are obliged to use only «safe and reliable» domestic alternatives to AMD and Intel chips, specified in a separate list — there are 18 of them, including products of Huawei and the state-backed company Phytium (both of which are banned in the United States, by the way).
- Last year, China accounted for 27% of Intel’s $54 billion in sales and 15% of AMD’s $23 billion in revenue (but it is not known what percentage was used in the public sector).
This step is just the latest in a series of bans aimed at American-made products. Last year, Beijing blocked use of Micron chips by domestic companies in critical infrastructure.
The United States also has a «blacklist» of Chinese companies — ranging from chipmakers to aerospace companies. Earlier, the Biden administration banned American companies such as NVIDIA, to sell AI and other chips to China.
The United States, Japan, and the Netherlands dominate the production of advanced processors and recently strengthened export controls for semiconductor manufacturing equipment from ASL, Nikon, and Tokyo Electron. However, Chinese companies, including Baidu, Huawei, Xiaomi, and Oppo, have already begun to develop their own analogs.
Last September, China also duplicated the 2019 ban, by blocking government officials from using iPhones and other foreign-branded smartphones at work