Joe Biden’s curbs on chips to China part of broader effort

Chip designer Nvidia Corp this week said the United States told it to restrict exports to China of two computing chips for artificial intelligence work, the latest move in a broader government effort to hamper China’s access to the most sophisticated semiconductors.

News of the letter to Nvidia, and a similar one to rival AMD, follows an August announcement from the Commerce Department curbing exports of materials and software used to make next-generation chips, as well as recent reporting from Reuters on other actions under consideration that would make it much harder for the Chinese semiconductor sector to compete on a global scale.

The US notice to chipmakers could cripple Chinese firms’ ability to carry out advanced work like image recognition and hamper Nvidia’s business in the country.