The US Commerce Department on Sunday decided to close a year-old loophole it had created that could have allowed companies to export the world’s most advanced chips – such as Nvidia’s latest Rubin and Blackwell processors, as well as AMD’s MI350x – to Chinese companies based outside of China.
The unexpected guidance suggests that the best US intelligence chips may have been going to subsidiaries of Chinese AI firms based in places such as Malaysia for nearly a year despite intense US efforts to starve Chinese firms of the semiconductor providers needed to develop critical AI capabilities.
The new guidance was posted on the US Commerce Department’s website on Sunday.
It is unclear how many chips have been shipped in the year the Trump administration left the door open. One chip industry source with extensive knowledge of the supply chain estimated it was in the hundreds of thousands.
In an unusual weekend guidance, the Commerce Department said it will enforce licensing requirements for state-of-the-art chips for corporations based in the country. Chinaeven when the vessels were outside of China.
The Commerce Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
