Lawmakers want US government to ban memory chips from China, even in allied supply chains — citing ‘unacceptable risk’ to national, economic, and supply chain s

Lawmakers want US government to ban memory chips from China, even in allied supply chains — citing 'unacceptable risk' to national, economic, and supply chain s

Moolenaar and Whitesides argue that purchases from Chinese memory manufacturers could indirectly support technologies applicable to China's military.

"Leading Chinese memory manufacturers are all closely intertwined with the Chinese military; thus, every memory purchase by a U.S. company will directly subsidize the People’s Liberation Army's development of this critical dual-use technology," the letter stresses.

The lawmakers argue that CXMT and YMTC could repeat China’s playbook in solar, steel, telecom, and EV markets: use state subsidies to undercut foreign rivals, weaken their investments, and ultimately exploit the resulting dependence for strategic leverage. That said, using Chinese memory now could permanently weaken Western production capacity and leave the West strategically dependent on China for a critical component of AI infrastructure, Moolenaar and Whitesides believe.

Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News , or add us as a preferred source , to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.

Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom\u2019s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends. ","collapsible":{"enabled":true,"maxHeight":250,"readMoreText":"Read more","readLessText":"Read less"}}), "https://slice.vanilla.futurecdn.net/13-4-25/js/authorBio.js"); } else { console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); } Anton Shilov Social Links Navigation Contributing Writer Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.

ThanosWasRight26 So,, basically increase the cost of RAM and storage for political nonsense of the orange sense. Reply

LordVile I mean fair enough it means the RAM issue everywhere else in the world will lessen considerably. If the US wants to vote in clowns that skyrocket the price of electronics for personal gain I don’t see why the rest of the world should suffer with them. Reply

Kicapan07 John Moolenaar, Republican chair of the U.S. House China Committee, and Democratic Congressman George Whitesides asked Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to prevent U.S. companies from purchasing semiconductors from businesses included either on the Pentagon's Chinese Military Companies blacklist or the Commerce Department's Entity List. These idiots are delusional. Especially considering they seem to consider every Chinese company and their brother having ties to Chinese military. By their logic, Burger King would have ties to the US military just cos they have outlets inside some US bases. Reply

spoidz "Corsair, Patriot Memory, and some other suppliers of branded memory modules and SSDs have been using DRAM from CXMT and 3D NAND from Yangtze Memory for some time now ." SO if I wanted to even know, are there software tools to know which IC's are inside RAM/SSD? Reply

hotaru251 'unacceptable risk' what risk? for Gov just use others (no risk but they can control what they use..its the gov) for consumer..again what risk? RAM is one of the safest products as it (atm) doesn't retain data after it loses power…thus you cant store anything bad in em as again they are wiped moment they are shipped. In a world where ram makers are giving finger to consumer having an alternative cheaper option should be celebrated. Reply

thestryker spoidz said: SO if I wanted to even know, are there software tools to know which IC's are inside RAM/SSD? For DRAM yes: HWInfo/CPU-Z (and other similar software) will pull the memory IC information. I don't believe there's any equivalent for SSDs, but for any bare drives you can just read the markings on the NAND. That being said I don't believe any western companies are selling products with Chinese sourced memory outside of China and there's nothing to be particularly concerned with if they were. Reply

Scott_Tx Worst I can think of is if the ram inserted a virus into running programs… possible? It seems like looking at the chip with an X-ray would find something that complicated quickly. Of course that goes for SSDs from Chiner too but no one is complaining about those. Reply

hotaru251 Scott_Tx said: Worst I can think of is if the ram inserted a virus into running programs… possible not even possible. RAM loses anything on it when non powered….so even if say a foreign nation wanted to put the most dangerous virus/malware/whatever onto ram..moment its packaged its already wiped and safe. Reply

moon2 hotaru251 said: not even possible. RAM loses anything on it when non powered….so even if say a foreign nation wanted to put the most dangerous virus/malware/whatever onto ram..moment its packaged its already wiped and safe. You say "not even possible", but… Why? If someone is making a malware laden RAM chip wouldn't the most obvious first step be to make sure your malware is stored on something non-volatile embedded in the same chip? "But that's not a ram chip" I hear you think. And, well, yes. That's the point. This is a malware chip masquerading convincingly as a RAM chip Reply

Key considerations

  • Investor positioning can change fast
  • Volatility remains possible near catalysts
  • Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows

Reference reading

More on this site

Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.

Leave a Comment