On June 2, Renes Haas, CEO of British chip design company Arm Holdings, said that preventing the export of central processing units (CPUs) used for artificial intelligence to China would be challenging. This is because CPUs have a wide range of applications, and it would be difficult to distinguish which CPUs are specifically designed for AI purposes.
According to Reuters, during his visit to Taipei, Taiwan, China, Hass made this statement during an interview.
Hass said that banning AI CPUs is almost impossible, as its difficult to set specific performance thresholds and memory bandwidth limits for CPUs, just like with graphics processors produced by NVIDIA. He said that if the United States wants to do this, they must limit everything related to CPUs.
He added that the U.S. government might attempt to do this, but its even more difficult to control AI chips than controlling traditional computers.
According to reports, the United States has increased efforts to deny Chinese companies access to advanced semiconductors and supercomputing devices necessary for developing key AI capabilities, under the pretext of national security. Although GPUs produced by companies like NVIDIA remain dominant in the AI market, due to the rapid shift in industry focus towards reasoning – that is, deploying AI models to perform tasks that require processing. As a result, demand for CPUs has increased significantly in recent months.
Meanwhile, Intel and AMD are also facing a surge in demand due to the use of AI applications that involve agents. An agent is a self-contained software component that can interact with the Internet and other software without requiring user input.
On that day, Arm Technology also announced two new customersByteDance and Oracle, a company specializing in data centers. These two companies will use its AGI CPU, which was released in March. Hass said that demand for its CPU is currently stronger than it was eight weeks ago.
Last month, Arm Technologies doubled its expectations for the demand for this new CPU. It is estimated that the total revenue in fiscal years 2027 and 2028 will reach $2 billion, and it is expected that the annual revenue will reach $15 billion in about five years.
Reuters reported that rising market demand is causing bottlenecks in the production of advanced chips.
When asked how Arm ensured sufficient wafer supplies from the contract chip manufacturer TSMC, Haas said that he met with TSMCs CEO the day before. Arm is also working with Japanese company Solectric Future, which helps other companies design custom chips. He said that Solectric Future can obtain wafers and can handle packaging tasks.
Additionally, Arm has collaborated with clients such as Oracle and Microsoft to ensure that they have sufficient standard memory chips available for manufacturing their AGI CPUs.
Last June, Has interviewed by Bloomberg. Video screenshot
This is not the first time that Hase has expressed concerns about U.S. export restrictions on China.
In June last year, during an interview with Bloomberg, Haas criticized the US regulatory measures. He warned that US export controls could slow down overall technological progress, stifle innovation, and ultimately harm consumers and businesses.
If you restrict access to technology, forcing other ecosystems to grow and develop, thats not a good thing, said Hass to Bloomberg. It reduces the size of the cake. To be honest, its not good for consumers. He also noted that Arms business in China is quite significant.
Bloomberg noted that as the Trump administration continues to tighten export controls on China, semiconductor companies such as Arm and NVIDIA have repeatedly warned that export bans could force China to develop its own industries, potentially having a negative impact on the United States.
From the Biden administration to the Trump administration, the United States has implemented a series of chip export restrictions to suppress Chinas technological development. These restrictions have been continuously tightened over time. Additionally, the United States has formed alliances and groups in an attempt to jointly block China.
Just two days before Haas issued his latest warnings, on May 31 local time, the U.S. Department of Commerce took further action to shut down what it claimed was a regulatory loophole that had existed for over a year. It is alleged that this loophole allowed several companies to export high-quality chips to Chinese entities located outside China. These include NVIDIAs most advanced Rubin and Blackwell processors, as well as AMDs MI350x chip.
It has been proven that the US measures to contain China have actually had the opposite effect. In recent years, Chinese domestic companies have grown rapidly and are making efforts to make breakthroughs in areas such as AI chips.
Regarding related issues, China has repeatedly stated its position. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning previously said that it has been proven that small courtyards and high walls cannot stop Chinas pace of innovation and development. Such measures also hinder the healthy growth of industries, including those involving American companies. The United States should adhere to the principles of a market economy and fair competition, and support companies from all countries in promoting technological progress through healthy competition.
