SMIC tied to Iran tech
U.S. officials allege China’s top chipmaker SMIC supplied chipmaking equipment and technical training to Iran’s military, a claim that raises fresh sanctions‑evasion concerns for the semiconductor supply chain. Washington is also advancing a bipartisan Chip Security Act to embed export tracking after recent smuggling cases, while Beijing has opened trade‑barrier investigations in response to U.S. tariff moves—setting up a tighter, more politicized tech‑trade environment. (reuters.com, digitimes.com, geopolitechs.org)
Two senior U.S. officials told Reuters SMIC began sending chipmaking tools to Iran’s “military industrial complex” roughly a year ago and that the transfers “almost certainly” included technical training. (usnews.com) Reuters noted one official saying “we have no reason to believe that any of this has stopped,” and the report did not specify whether the equipment contained U.S.-origin components that would violate export controls. (usnews.com) SMIC was added to a U.S. trade blacklist in 2020 that restricts its access to American exports, and the Commerce Department in September 2025 placed multiple firms on the Entity List for acquiring U.S. chipmaking equipment in support of SMIC. (usnews.com) The House Foreign Affairs Committee on March 26, 2026 voted 42-0 to advance the Chip Security Act (H.R.3447), moving the bill that would require the Commerce secretary to issue chip‑security standards closer to a House floor vote. (exportcompliancedaily.com) Federal prosecutors unsealed an indictment charging Super Micro co‑founder Yih‑Shyan “Wally” Liaw and two others with a scheme to divert about $2.5 billion in Nvidia‑powered servers to China, a case that lawmakers and Bloomberg cited as accelerating the push for chip‑security rules. (bloomberg.com) China’s Ministry of Commerce on March 27, 2026 launched two trade‑barrier investigations targeting U.S. measures it said disrupt global production and impede trade in green products, announcing the probes as bilateral tensions rose ahead of scheduled summit talks. (bloomberg.com) H.R.3447, introduced May 15, 2025, would require technical “chip security mechanisms,” including location‑verification measures for exported advanced integrated circuits, language drawn directly from the bill text now before the committee. (govinfo.gov)
