BEIJING - The United States on Tuesday said it was tightening curbs on exports of state-of-the-art AI chips to China, sending the share price of Nvidia and other semiconductor companies plummeting on Wall Street.
The measures are the latest chapter in the policy started under the Trump administration to limit Beijing's ability to gain too much ground and become a leading tech economy.
"Today's updated rules will increase the effectiveness of our controls and further shut off pathways to evade our restrictions," said US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.
The new rules tighten measures taken a year ago that banned the sale to China of microchips that are crucial to the manufacturing of powerful AI systems.
But calls to further close off the supply chain grew after the world discovered the powers of AI with the launch of ChatGPT.
Also causing alarm in Washington was news that China-owned Huawei had released a new smartphone that featured a powerful home-grown advanced chip.
When announcing the new curbs, Raimondo insisted that the beefed up curbs were intended to close loopholes and to prevent China's development of AI for military use.
"It's true that AI has the potential for huge societal benefit. But it also can do tremendous and profound harm if it's in the wrong hands and in the wrong militaries," she told US media.
The main focus of attention has been Nvidia's industry-leading H100 chip, which is crucial for the creation of generative AI, the technology behind ChatGPT and other powerful systems.