One of China’s most promising chip designers has already navigated through export restrictions implemented by US President Joe Biden’s administration and concluded it would be able to continue tapping Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) to produce its advanced silicon.
Shanghai-based Biren Intelligent Technology (壁仞科技) develops artificial intelligence (AI) chips and is considered a promising domestic contender to compete with graphics chips from Nvidia Corp, which has said it can no longer sell its most advanced AI products in China.
The US measures were designed to limit China’s development of technology that could be used in aid of its military, and appeared to rule out access to advanced fabrication, but Biren believes its AI chips produced by TSMC are not covered by the sanctions, people with direct knowledge of the matter said.
Photo: AP
Biren, founded in 2019, made bold claims in the summer about its chips outperforming Nvidia’s market-leading A100 AI accelerator — the product that can no longer be sold in China.
However, after reviewing the designs, TSMC and Biren concluded that the specifications of the Chinese chip do not meet the criteria for restriction, according to one of the people, who asked not to be named.
It suggests that Washington’s controls might not be a catch-all for alternatives to Nvidia’s hardware.
“Biren has a chip fortunately just below the threshold and the chip hence can still be made by TSMC,” Sanford C. Bernstein analysts led by Mark Li wrote in a report that analyzed chips against the US export control.
TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, complies with all relevant rules and regulations and “will continue to serve all customers around the world,” TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) said in response to a question about China during its earnings call last week.
Biren believes everything it is doing complies with legal regulations, according to one of the people. TSMC is reviewing products from other Chinese chip developers to see whether it can continue their production under the new export controls, another person said.
Bernstein’s Li saw limited revenue exposure for TSMC from the new controls, stressing that “only very high-end computer chips are restricted,” and estimating a hit of 0.4 percent to the company’s sales next year.
While Biren can continue building its current generation of semiconductors, Washington’s curbs are likely to effectively cap its progress up the technology ladder. Additional improvements from Biren are liable to fall foul of the high-performance silicon restriction.
Biren, backed by the likes of venture firms IDG Capital and Walden International, was seeking new funds earlier this year at a valuation of US$2.7 billion, Bloomberg News reported.
Its flagship BR100 and BR104 processors are designed along similar lines to the graphics chips that Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices Inc have adapted to AI purposes, and can be used to train artificial intelligence models and algorithms that include computer vision, natural language processing and conversational AI.
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