US lawmakers are frustrated and criticizing the Biden administration after Chinese telecom giant Huawei this week unveiled laptops with Intel AI chips.
Huawei has introduced the MateBook X Pro laptop, which supports the new Intel Core Ultra 9 processor. The announcement sparked concerns among Republicans, who said the Commerce Department had agreed to send new AI chips to Huawei.
Republican Elise Stefanik said on social media that the laptops were evidence that the Commerce Department had approved the shipments.
Stefanik wrote in a post about how this was unacceptable.
The Biden Administration is allowing new U.S. taxpayer funded technology to be exported to the Communist Chinese spy company Huawei which aids the Chinese military.
Huawei has been listed on the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Standards Entity List since 2019…
— Rep. Elise Stefanik (@RepStefanik) April 12, 2024
Republican Michael McCall said such approvals should be stopped and that the policy had not changed as promised, Reuters reported.
“Two years ago we were told that Huawei’s license would be suspended. That policy does not appear to have changed,” McCall said.
The news agency cited sources saying the chips were shipped under existing licenses and were not subject to recent restrictions on shipping artificial intelligence chips to China.
US trade restrictions
In 2019, the US placed Huawei on its trade sanctions list for violating Iran sanctions. This prevents US suppliers from selling to Huawei without special authorization.
One such license issued by the Trump administration allowed Intel to supply laptop CPUs to Huawei. While some supported revoking the permit, many accepted that the permit expired this year and would not be renewed.
Bhupendra Singh Chundawat is a seasoned technology journalist with over 22 years of experience in the media industry. He specializes in covering the global technology landscape, with a deep focus on manufacturing trends and the geopolitical impact on tech companies. Currently serving as the Editor at Udaipur Kiran, his insights are shaped by decades of hands-on reporting and editorial leadership in the fast-evolving world of technology.
