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China is boosting its crackdown on US chip imports – launching an antitrust investigation into Qualcomm and deploying customs officials to ports to weed out Nvidia processors.
China’s market regulator said Friday it was investigating whether Qualcomm’s acquisition of Israeli chip maker Autotalks marked a violation of Chinese antitrust law.
Shares in San Diego, Calif.-based Qualcomm fell 1.3% in the morning.
Qualcomm, which sells smartphone chips to major Chinese companies like Xiaomi, took control of Autotalks in June, about two years after the deal was announced.
A spokesperson for Qualcomm said the company is cooperating with Chinese regulators on the investigation.
“Qualcomm is committed to supporting the development and growth of our customers and partners,” the spokesperson told The Post in a statement.
The new probe comes after China’s State Administration of Market Regulation claimed in September that Nvidia had violated antitrust laws with its acquisition of Mellanox, a deal aimed at boosting the chip titan’s data center efficiency.
Recent weeks have seen China reportedly increase its efforts to clamp down on chip imports from Jensen Huang’s Nvidia.
Authorities have stationed extra teams of customs officials at ports across the country to check semiconductor shipments, three people with knowledge of the matter told the Financial Times.
On Friday, China announced it will start charging US ships for docking at Chinese ports, whether they carry microchips or not. The policy is set to take effect on Oct. 14 — the same day US port fees on China start.
The Chinese Ministry of Transport blasted the US fees as “seriously” violating global trading principles and damaging US-China maritime trade, according to CNBC.
On the domestic front, Chinese regulators have reportedly been encouraging companies to stop ordering Nvidia chips, including the China-specific variants that were designed to pass stricter export restrictions.
Nvidia’s H20 and RTX Pro 6000D are considered watered-down versions of the chips the company can sell in the US. They were designed to comply with new American controls that limit exports of advanced chips, a move sparked by fears that China could edge ahead in the AI race.
Meanwhile, Beijing has been working to build up its AI capabilities and reduce its reliance on America.
Chinese customs officials are checking all semiconductor products in order to track down smuggled advanced chips that breach US export curbs, a person familiar with the matter told the Financial Times.
That’s a stark contrast from earlier in the year, when China reportedly accepted at least $1 billion worth of Nvidia’s top AI chips that skirted US restrictions in the three months from May, the Financial Times previously reported.
A Nvidia spokesperson declined to comment.
President Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping had been expected to meet in person during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum during the last week of October in South Korea — but the US commander-in-chief threw major doubt on those plans on Friday.
Trump said there’s “no reason” for the meeting as he threatened to increase tariffs and impose export controls on China in the wake of Beijing’s latest restrictions on rare-earth materials.
China has been trying to triple its production of advanced semiconductors next year, to fill the void left by Nvidia, the Financial Times previously reported.
Top Chinese officials have claimed that chips manufactured domestically have reached performance metrics that compare with Nvidia’s processors.
It has also launched investigations into Chinese companies that it suspects smuggled in advanced US chips, two people familiar with the inspections told the news outlet.
