{"id":11611,"date":"2023-10-07T00:05:06","date_gmt":"2023-10-07T00:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/us-china-tech-war-risc-v-chip-technology-emerges-as-new-battleground\/"},"modified":"2023-10-07T00:05:06","modified_gmt":"2023-10-07T00:05:06","slug":"us-china-tech-war-risc-v-chip-technology-emerges-as-new-battleground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/us-china-tech-war-risc-v-chip-technology-emerges-as-new-battleground\/","title":{"rendered":"US-China tech war: RISC-V chip technology emerges as new battleground"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div dir=\"auto\">\n<p>In a new front in the US-China tech war, President Joe Biden\u2019s administration is facing pressure from some lawmakers to restrict American companies from working on a freely available chip technology widely used in China \u2014 a move that could upend how the global technology industry collaborates across borders.<\/p>\n<p>At issue is RISC-V, pronounced \u201crisk five,\u201d an open-source technology that competes with costly proprietary technology from British semiconductor and software design company Arm Holdings.<\/p>\n<p>RISC-V can be used as a key ingredient for anything from a smartphone chip to advanced processors for artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n<p>Some lawmakers &#8211; including two Republican House of Representatives committee chairmen, Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Democratic Senator Mark Warner \u2014 are urging Biden\u2019s administration to take action regarding RISC-V, citing national security grounds.<\/p>\n<p>The lawmakers expressed concerns that Beijing is exploiting a culture of open collaboration among American companies to advance its own semiconductor industry, which could erode the current US lead in the chip field and help China modernize its military. Their comments represent the first major effort to put constraints on work by US companies on RISC-V.<\/p>\n<p>Representative Mike Gallagher, chairman of the House Select Committee on China, said in a statement to <em>Reuters<\/em> that the Commerce Department needs to \u201crequire any American person or company to receive an export license prior to engaging with PRC (People\u2019s Republic of China) entities on RISC-V technology.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Such calls to regulate RISC-V are the latest in the US-China battle over chip technology that escalated last year with sweeping export restrictions that the Biden administration has told China it will update this month.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe CCP (Chinese Communist Party) is abusing RISC-V to get around US dominance of the intellectual property needed to design chips. US persons should not be supporting a PRC tech transfer strategy that serves to degrade US export control laws,\u201d Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement to <em>Reuters<\/em>.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media  sm:w-1\/2  w-full  media--right  media--embed  media--uneven\">\n<p>    <iframe class=\"nk-iframe\" onload=\"setInterval(()=&gt;{try{this.style.height=this.contentWindow.document.body.scrollHeight+'px';}catch{}}, 100)\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"height:400px;position:relative\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/card\/1734204\" sandbox=\"allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-popups allow-modals allow-forms\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>McCaul said he wants action from the Bureau of Industry and Security, the part of the Commerce Department that oversees export-control regulations, and would pursue legislation if that does not materialise.<\/p>\n<p>The bureau \u201cis constantly reviewing the technology landscape and threat environment, and continually assessing how best to apply our export control policies to protect national security and safeguard core technologies,\u201d a Commerce Department spokesperson said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCommunist China is developing open-source chip architecture to dodge our sanctions and grow its chip industry,\u201d Rubio said in a statement to <em>Reuters<\/em>. \u201cIf we don\u2019t broaden our export controls to include this threat, China will one day surpass us as the global leader in chip design.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI fear that our export-control laws are not equipped to deal with the challenge of open-source software &#8211; whether in advanced semiconductor designs like RISC-V or in the area of AI &#8211; and a dramatic paradigm shift is needed,\u201d Warner said in a statement to <em>Reuters<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>RISC-V is overseen by a Swiss-based nonprofit foundation that coordinates efforts among for-profit companies to develop the technology.<\/p>\n<p>The RISC-V technology came from labs at the University of California, Berkeley, and later benefited from funding by the Pentagon\u2019s Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media  sm:w-1\/2  w-full  media--right  media--embed  media--uneven\">\n<p>    <iframe class=\"nk-iframe\" onload=\"setInterval(()=&gt;{try{this.style.height=this.contentWindow.document.body.scrollHeight+'px';}catch{}}, 100)\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"height:400px;position:relative\" src=\"https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/card\/1760606\" sandbox=\"allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-popups allow-modals allow-forms\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Its creators have compared it to Ethernet, USB and even the internet, which are freely available and draw on contributions from around the world to make innovation faster and cheaper.<\/p>\n<h2><a id=\"huawei-technologies\" href=\"#huawei-technologies\" class=\"heading-permalink\" aria-hidden=\"true\" title=\"Permalink\"\/>Huawei Technologies<\/h2>\n<p>Executives from China\u2019s Huawei Technologies have embraced RISC-V as a pillar of that nation\u2019s progress in developing its own chips. But the United States and its allies also have jumped on the technology, with chip giant Qualcomm working with a group of European automotive firms on RISC-V chips and Alphabet\u2019s Google, saying it will make Android, the world\u2019s most popular mobile operating system, work on RISC-V chips.<\/p>\n<p>Qualcomm declined to comment. Its executives said in August they believe RISC-V will speed up chip innovation and transform the tech industry.<br \/>\nGoogle did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n<p>If Biden\u2019s administration were to regulate US companies\u2019 participation in the Swiss-based foundation in the manner lawmakers are seeking, the move could complicate how American and Chinese companies work together on open technical standards.<\/p>\n<p>It also could create hurdles for China\u2019s pursuit of chip self-sufficiency, as well as for US and European efforts to create cheaper and more versatile chips.<br \/>\nJack Kang, vice president of business development at SiFive, a Santa Clara, California-based startup using RISC-V, said potential US government restrictions on American companies regarding RISC-V would be a \u201ctremendous tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt would be like banning us from working on the internet,\u201d Kang said. \u201cIt would be a huge mistake in terms of technology, leadership, innovation, and companies and jobs that are being created.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Regulating the open discussion of technologies is rarer than regulating physical products, but not impossible, said Kevin Wolf, an export-control attorney at law firm Akin Gump who served in the Commerce Department under former President Barack Obama.<\/p>\n<p>Existing rules on chip exports could help provide a legal framework for such a proposal, Wolf said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a new front in the US-China tech war, President Joe Biden\u2019s administration is facing pressure from some lawmakers to restrict American companies from working on a freely available chip technology widely used in China \u2014 a move that could upend how the global technology industry collaborates across borders. At issue is RISC-V, pronounced \u201crisk [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/10\/061626392c072a5.jpg?r=163104","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}