Beijing has blocked the prominent semiconductor research firm TechInsights. This move will make it much harder for the world to know what’s really going on inside China’s secretive chip industry. Citing national security concerns, China’s Commerce Ministry announced that the Canadian-based firm is now an “unreliable entity,” which means it’s illegal for any Chinese person or company to work with them.
The crackdown on TechInsights comes just a week after the firm published a bombshell report revealing that Huawei’s latest AI chips contain components that were sourced from outside of mainland China. This is a big deal because it suggests that even as Beijing pushes for a “self-sufficient” chip industry, its top companies are still relying on foreign technology, including from companies in countries that are supposed to be following U.S. export controls.
TechInsights is famous in the tech world for its detailed “teardowns” of new chips, and it was one of the first to report on Huawei’s breakthroughs. Its latest report on Huawei’s “Ascend” AI chips found components from memory chipmakers like Samsung and the Taiwanese giant TSMC.
This is a problem because both Samsung and TSMC are under U.S. export controls, and Huawei has been on a U.S. trade blocklist since 2019. The findings raise serious questions about how effective these U.S. restrictions really are.
By banning TechInsights, Beijing is clearly trying to control the narrative and keep the inner workings of its chip industry a secret. It’s a move that will only add to the mystery and suspicion surrounding China’s rapid technological rise.
