“That’s not productive,” Raimondo said. “I am telling you if you redesign a chip around a particular cutline that enables them to do AI, I am going to control it the very next day.”
Raimondo said Monday the department was working with Nvidia. “They want to do the right thing. Obviously they want to sell as many chips as possible.”
Nvidia declined to comment. Last week, Huang said the company was working closely with the U.S. government to ensure new chips for the Chinese market were compliant with export curbs.
Raimondo separately said it was too soon to tell if the establishment of a commercial issues working group with China in August was working.
In November, China’s central bank granted a license to a joint venture set up by MasterCard and China approved Broadcom’s $69 billion acquisition of cloud-computing firm VMware. She called those “baby steps in the right direction.”
Raimondo said she was disappointed Chinese airlines had not started taking Boeing airplane deliveries. Boeing is still waiting to resume deliveries of its 737 MAX to Chinese airlines more than four years after they were halted following two deadly crashes. Boeing declined comment.
Raimondo said U.S. President Joe Biden raised Boeing last month during talks in California with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
“We’re going to keep pressing,” Raimondo said. “There is no reason they shouldn’t make good on that commitment.”
Separately, Raimondo again called on Congress to pass legislation to address potential threats to national security from foreign apps like TikTok. Legislation has stalled to give the administration new tools to address security concerns around foreign-owned apps.
“We need the tools,” Raimondo said. “I don’t think it should be just banning Tiktok – we don’t want get into the business of naming companies for so many reasons… Today it’s TikTok. Who knows what it is tomorrow?”
TikTok denies it poses national security concerns.
Reuters