US lawmakers press Biden for plans on Chinese use of open chip technology. Following Reuters’s story last month on the growing concerns in both chambers of Congress on China’s increasing use of RISC-V chip design technology, a larger bipartisan group of US senators is questioning the Biden administration’s plans to address the issue.
Pronounced “risk five,” RISC-V is an open-source, accessible technology that rivals expensive, proprietary offerings from Intel Corp (INTC.O) and British semiconductor and software design company Arm Holdings (O9Ty.F). It can be an essential component of sophisticated artificial intelligence processors or a smartphone chip.
Chinese enterprises and American corporations like Qualcomm (QCOM.O) and Alphabet’s (GOOGL.O) Google have adopted RISC-V.
Because RISC-V is exempt from the extensive export restrictions the United States has placed on the transfer of chip technology to China, Reuters revealed last month that at least four powerful U.S. politicians saw Chinese use of the technology as a possible national security danger.
Now, a larger group of 18 lawmakers—five of whom are Democrats—are requesting information from the Biden administration about how it intends to stop China “from achieving dominance in… RISC-V technology and leveraging that dominance at the expense of U.S. national and economic security,” as per a letter obtained by Reuters from the group and addressed to Raimondo.
Democratic congressmen from New Jersey, Florida, Michigan, and Indiana are among the lawmakers, as are the Republican chairman and ranking Democrat of the House of Representatives special committee on China. Additionally, they questioned the Biden administration on how it would implement an executive order that now exists to mandate that American businesses get an export license before collaborating with Chinese firms on RISC-V technology.
“While the benefits of open-source collaboration on RISC-V promise to be significant for advancement and development of the U.S. semiconductor industry, it can only be realized when contributors are working with the sole aim of improving the technology, and not aiding the technological goals and geopolitical interests of” China, the lawmakers wrote in their letter.
According to a representative for the Commerce Department, Raimondo has received the letter and will reply via the proper procedures.
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