China Pledges To Consolidate Tech R&D Position As US Continue To Slap Restrictions

China's President Xi Jinping sought a more robust effort to pool nationwide resources to advance critical technologies amid rising tensions with the U.S. during a Communist Party meeting, Bloomberg reports.

Xi urged China to "pool resources to accomplish competitive advantages in specific sectors to win strategic initiative opportunities. China prioritized research of technologies that have a first-mover advantage or can guide future development.

U.S.'s embargo on cutting-edge technology export to China could disrupt high-profile universities and state-run research institutes in China relying on a U.S. computing chip to power their artificial intelligence (AI) technology, Reuters reports.

U.S. had ordered Nvidia Corp NVDA to stop exporting its A100 and H100 chips to China. The U.S. also restricted Advanced Micro Devices Inc AMD from exporting to China its advanced AI chip MI250. 

Tsinghua University spent over $0.4 million last October on two Nvidia AI supercomputers, each powered by four A100 chips. The Institute of Computing Technology spent around $0.25 million on A100 chips.

The school of artificial intelligence at a CAS university in July spent $0.2 million on high-tech equipment, including a server partly powered by A100 chips.

In November, the cybersecurity college of Guangdong-based Jinan University spent over $0.09 million on an Nvidia AI supercomputer, while its school of intelligent systems science and engineering spent almost $0.1 million on eight A100 chips.

Earlier, China opposed the U.S. Chips Act and assured aggressive measures. Some provisions in the U.S. act restricted normal economic, trade, and investment activities of relevant firms in China, the country alleged.

The U.S. Chips Act barred companies vying for funding from materially expanding production of chips more advanced than 28-nm in China for ten years. 

The U.S. restricted China's leading chipmaker, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp, access to ASML Holding NV's ASML cutting-edge ultraviolet lithography systems. 

The U.S. weighed restricting access of its chipmaking equipment to memory chip makers in China, including Yangtze Memory Technologies Co Ltd.

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