WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Republican lawmakers criticized the Biden administration on Friday after sanctioned Chinese telecommunications equipment giant Huawei this week unveiled a laptop powered by an Intel AI chip.
The United States placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 over Iran-related sanctions violations, part of a broader effort to hamper Beijing’s technological advancements.
Getting on the list means the company’s U.S. suppliers must seek a special, hard-to-obtain license before shipping their products there.
One such license, issued by the Trump administration, has allowed Intel to deliver central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. Chinese hardliners had urged the Biden administration to revoke this license, but many accepted that it would later expire this license. year and will not be renewed.
Huawei’s unveiling Thursday of its first AI-enabled laptop, the MateBook approved shipments of the new chip to Huawei.
Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik said in a post on social media platform
“It is unacceptable that the Biden administration is actively working to undermine U.S. national security by allowing our greatest strategic adversary access to cutting-edge U.S. technology,” Stefanik said.
The Commerce Department declined to comment. Huawei and Intel did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Another Republican representative, Michael McCaul, echoed Stefanik’s comments in an emailed statement to Reuters. “These approvals must stop,” he said. “Two years ago, I was told that licensing to Huawei would cease. Today, it does not appear that the policy has changed.”
A source familiar with the matter said the chips were shipped under an existing license. They are not covered by recent widespread restrictions on AI chip shipments to China, the source and another person said.
(Reporting by Alexandra Alper and Karen Freifeld; Editing by Leslie Adler)
