TSMC panics after being identified as the maker of new Huawei chip

Reuters reports that TSMC revealed this information to US authorities after being made aware of the discovery by analyst firm TechInsights, which apparently found a TSMC-made Huawei Ascend 910B chip when it did a teardown of one of Huawei’s latest AI accelerators. While TechInsights has yet to publish those findings, the details were leaked to Bloomberg, which reported on the matter yesterday.

As we recently reported, the US is trying to starve China of cutting-edge chips and also of the ability to become self-sufficient in the manufacture of even less advanced ones. Telecoms vendor Huawei has long been the main proxy for America’s bid to stifle China’s technological development, so US politicians are especially triggered by any suggestion that it may be circumventing their haphazard measures and getting hold of the chips it needs.

Within that piece we referred to another report that claimed US authorities were already investigating the matter of TSMC not doing what it’s told with respect to making chips for Huawei. While it must be tempted to tell the US where to shove its unilateral demands, it seems fair to assume that TSMC has done its best to comply with them.

It’s not clear whether the Ascend 910B chip was made after the US first issued its ban or whether Huawei was able to stockpile them in anticipation of it. If it’s the former then you can see why US select committee on the CCP is feeling so impotent and humiliated. However that does put TSMC and the Taiwanese government in a tricky position, from which they will only be able to escape by proving TSMC accepted no orders from Huawei from the moment the US issued its sanction.

Perhaps the committee will decide to draw down yet more US geopolitical capital and write another of its really effective letters to invite such a show of fealty. We contacted TechInsights for confirmation of its findings but it declined to comment, as it did to Bloomberg and Reuters. TSMC told Reuters it was unaware of any US investigations into this matter. Huawei told Bloomberg that not only has it not produced chips through TSMC since the US ban, it has never even launched the 910B chip!

Elsewhere Huawei has released the latest version of its smartphone operating system – HarmonyOS NEXT. Other Chinese phone companies use Android but another component of the US ban-fest demanded Google deny Huawei access to the Android Play store, thus rendering the platform useless to it. So, once more, Huawei has been incentivised to innovate away from US products and, according to The Register, HarmonyOS NEXT is completely independent of Android.

"HarmonyOS has become the most vital digital foundation,” said Richard Yu, Chairman Huawei’s Device business group and of its Intelligent Automotive Solutions business unit. “As of now, it has more than 110 million lines of code, more than 15,000 HarmonyOS native applications and meta-services have been launched, and there are more than 1 billion HarmonyOS ecological devices. The stars are shining, everything is new, and now we are starting from the beginning!"

It's not difficult to detect a bit of US baiting in that defiant statement. We won’t labour our point about the probable futility of America’s attempt to put the Chinese technological genie back in the bottle and reflect only on how entertaining this cat-and-mouse saga is. The US will continue to sanction technological avenues for China, only for the latter to circumvent them through a combination of clandestine workarounds and internal innovation. It may be in Western interests for the US to prevail but it’s still tempting to root for Jerry occasionally.