Export controls

Biden administration curtails controls on some space-related exports

The US Commerce Department announced Thursday it is easing restrictions on exports of space-related technology, answering a yearslong call from space companies to reform regulations governing international trade.

This is the most significant update to space-related export regulations in a decade and opens more opportunities for US companies to sell their satellite hardware abroad.

“We are very excited about this rollout,” a senior Commerce official said during a background call with reporters. “It’s been a long time coming, and I think it’s going to be very meaningful for our national security and foreign policy interests and certainly facilitate secure trade with our partners.”

Overdue reform

One of the changes will allow US companies to export more products related to electro-optical and radar remote sensing, as well as space-based logistics, assembly, or servicing spacecraft destined for Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom.

“They’re easing restrictions on some of the less sensitive space-related technologies and on spacecraft-related items going to our closest allies, like Australia, Canada, and the UK,” the senior Commerce official said. “These changes will offer relief to US companies and they’ll increase innovation without comprising the critical technologies that keep our nation safe.”

Another update to the Commerce Department’s regulations will remove license requirements for exports of “certain spacecraft components” to more than 40 allied nations, including NATO and European Union member states, Argentina, Australia, Canada, India, Israel, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, and Taiwan. This will also create more license exceptions to support NASA’s cooperative programs with other nations, officials said.

A third change, which hasn’t been finalized and must go through a public comment period, proposes to transfer some space-related item—spacecraft capable of in-space docking, grappling, and refueling, autonomous collision avoidance, and autonomous detection of ground vehicles and aircraft—from the highly restrictive State Department’s US Munitions List to the more flexible Commerce Control List.

US suspects TSMC helped Huawei skirt export controls, report says

5G, AI chips, Apple, Artificial Intelligence, china tariffs, Chips Act, Export controls, Huawei, NVIDIA, Policy, qualcomm, semiconductors, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, TSMC / Kris Guyer / October 18, 2024

In April, TSMC was provided with $6.6 billion in direct CHIPS Act funding to “support TSMC’s investment of more than $65 billion in three greenfield leading-edge fabs in Phoenix, Arizona, which will manufacture the world’s most advanced semiconductors,” the Department of Commerce said.

These investments are key to the Biden-Harris administration’s mission of strengthening “economic and national security by providing a reliable domestic supply of the chips that will underpin the future economy, powering the AI boom and other fast-growing industries like consumer electronics, automotive, Internet of Things, and high-performance computing,” the department noted. And in particular, the funding will help America “maintain our competitive edge” in artificial intelligence, the department said.

It likely wouldn’t make sense to prop TSMC up to help the US “onshore the critical hardware manufacturing capabilities that underpin AI’s deep language learning algorithms and inferencing techniques,” to then limit access to US-made tech. TSMC’s Arizona fabs are supposed to support companies like Apple, Nvidia, and Qualcomm and enable them to “compete effectively,” the Department of Commerce said.

Currently, it’s unclear where the US probe into TSMC will go or whether a damaging finding could potentially impact TSMC’s CHIPS funding.

Last fall, the Department of Commerce published a final rule, though, designed to “prevent CHIPS funds from being used to directly or indirectly benefit foreign countries of concern,” such as China.

If the US suspected that TSMC was aiding Huawei’s AI chip manufacturing, the company could be perceived as avoiding CHIPS guardrails prohibiting TSMC from “knowingly engaging in any joint research or technology licensing effort with a foreign entity of concern that relates to a technology or product that raises national security concerns.”

Violating this “technology clawback” provision of the final rule risks “the full amount” of CHIPS Act funding being “recovered” by the Department of Commerce. That outcome seems unlikely, though, given that TSMC has been awarded more funding than any other recipient apart from Intel.

The Department of Commerce declined Ars’ request to comment on whether TSMC’s CHIPS Act funding could be impacted by their reported probe.

US suspects TSMC helped Huawei skirt export controls, report says Read More »