The US Department of Commerce has added 36 more Chinese companies to the list of those who are now prohibited from supplying American technology without obtaining separate permission from the administration of President Joe Biden, Bloomberg reports. The list included Yangtze Memory Technologies, a major flash memory chip supplier, and Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment, which specializes in the development and maintenance of semiconductor equipment.
The US government is trying to limit China’s access to advanced semiconductors and technologies used in artificial intelligence. According to Undersecretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Alan Estevez, the sanctions are intended to severely limit “China’s ability to use artificial intelligence, advanced computing and other powerful, commercially available technologies to modernize the military and violate human rights.”
Dozens of Chinese companies are blacklisted by the Ministry of Commerce, including Huawei, ZTE and SMIC. And in October of this year, the US Federal Communications Commission imposed its own sanctions on Chinese companies, which banned the import and sale in the United States of telecommunications equipment manufactured by Huawei, ZTE and several other Chinese companies, considering that they pose a threat to national security.