US mulls new curbs on China's access to AI memory chips, Bloomberg News says

(Reuters) -The U.S. is considering unilateral restrictions on China's access to AI memory chips such as those made by Micron Technology and SK Hynix and equipment capable of making such semiconductors, as soon as next month, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday.

The measures are meant to prevent Micron, and South Korea's SK Hynix and Samsung from suppling Chinese firms with high bandwidth memory (HBM) chips that are essential in helping run complex generative artificial intelligence programs, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter.

The U.S. Department of Commerce declined to comment, while the companies did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment.

If enacted, the new rule would capture HBM2 and more advanced chips including HBM3 and HBM3E, as well as the tools required to make them, the report said, adding that no final decision on the restrictions has been made.

HBM chips are needed to run AI semiconductors such as those sold by market leader Nvidia and aspiring competitor AMD.

Micron will be largely unaffected as the chipmaker has held back from exporting its HBM products to China after Beijing banned its memory chips from critical infrastructure in 2023, the report said.

It was unclear what authority the U.S. would use to restrict the South Korean firms, the report said.

This could include the foreign direct product rule, or FDPR, which lets the U.S. impose controls on foreign-made products that use some amount of American technology, according to the report.

SK Hynix and Samsung extensively utilize technology from American firms such as Applied Materials and Cadence Design Systems.

While the new measures would curb direct sales of HBM chips to Chinese companies, it's unclear whether selling high-end memory chips bundled together with AI accelerators to China would be permissible, the report said.

(Reporting by Arsheeya Bajwa in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)