This outstanding report from the Center for Security and Emerging Technologies at Georgetown University documents, in incredible detail, how China’s People’s Liberation Army is obtaining American-designed semiconductors to use in its weapons programs, specifically in its efforts to harness Artificial Intelligence. It’s widely assumed that AI will be critical in any confrontation between the United States and China. The Chinese want to develop their AI to they can keep track of American ships and missiles and planes in the Pacific.
Intel, Nvidia, Xilinx, and others design the chips, which are then manufactured in Taiwan by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (TSMC) and in South Korea by Samsung Electronics. Chips designed by Qualcomm and manufactured in Taiwan also have been reported to be in the PLA’s hands.
No foreign entity is selling the semiconductors directly to the PLA. Instead, there are a number of middlemen with innocuous-sounding names who buy the chips and route them to the PLA.
It seems the United States and its techno-democratic allies have much work to be done in further controlling the sale of semiconductors to the PLA.
