Hindered by Two-Country Rules, Alibaba Cannot Try Arm's Chips

Illustration of Chip Arm (photo: dock. Ist)

JAKARTA - Alibaba, one of the Chinese e-commerce giants, was affected by the rules of the United States (US) and Britain which prohibited the use of Arm's new chips.

The new design of the high-end chip, the Neoverse V series, cannot be sold to Alibaba because the US and UK will not approve the sale, or even grant a license to export it to China.

In October, the US introduced sweeping restrictions on chip sales to China, aimed at undermining Beijing's military and technological capabilities.

Meanwhile, the UK established the Wassenaar rule, namely the export control which was first made in 1996 and involved 42 countries. Therefore, Arm, which is owned by the country-based SoftBank, cannot sell chips to China.

Arm said it cannot sell chip designs to China because it is classified as US-origin technology which falls under Wassenaar.

With the obstruction, Alibaba was unable to purchase the Neoverse V1 and V2 series, resulting in a bottleneck in cloud computing and machine learning performance.

In addition, these export controls would seriously hinder China's ability to build leading chips, and come years after Arm was first forced to cut ties with Huawei due to US trade bans.

Manufacturers such as Intel and Micron had to obtain licenses from the US Department of Commerce to export chip-making equipment and semiconductors to Chinese companies, and Britain followed similar export restrictions.

Finally, quoted from The Verge, Monday, December 19, Japan and the Netherlands have also agreed to join the US and UK in tightening controls on chip-making machines to China.