Chip approvals and procurement curbs
Approvals for Nvidia and AMD AI‑chip exports to China are stalling due to staffing shortages at the approving U.S. bureau, creating administrative bottlenecks for hardware flows. At the same time, the EU will stop funding projects that use Chinese‑made inverters as part of a quieter industrial‑security push, showing procurement rules and approval queues are now core supply‑chain constraints. (startupnews.fyi (scmp.com)
U.S. approvals for some Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices artificial-intelligence chip exports to China are slowing, while Brussels is moving to block European Union money from projects that use Chinese-made inverters. (finance.yahoo.com) (scmp.com) The U.S. bottleneck runs through the Bureau of Industry and Security, the Commerce Department office that reviews export licenses for dual-use goods, meaning products with both civilian and military uses. The bureau’s own performance material says referred licenses are the cases that need recommendations from other agencies such as Defense, State and Energy. (commerce.gov) (finance.yahoo.com) Those delays now hit products Washington has already pulled into case-by-case review. On January 13, 2026, the Bureau of Industry and Security said it would review export applications for Nvidia H200 and Advanced Micro Devices MI325X-class chips for China individually rather than ban them outright. (bis.gov) Advanced Micro Devices disclosed on April 15, 2025, that U.S. license requirements for its MI308 chips could trigger charges of about $800 million in inventory, purchase commitments and reserves. Nvidia’s China business has already been shaped by repeated U.S. rule changes, including the October 2023 tightening of advanced-computing controls. (sec.gov) (federalregister.gov) In Europe, the target is not chips but the equipment that connects solar panels to the grid. Inverters turn direct current from panels into alternating current that homes and power systems can use, and the South China Morning Post reported on April 14 that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen approved a March plan to deny European Union funding to clean-tech projects containing Chinese inverters. (scmp.com) That move fits a wider European rulebook that is already shifting public procurement and subsidy decisions. Under a May 2025 implementing regulation for the Net-Zero Industry Act, European Union countries must apply non-price criteria including cybersecurity, responsible business conduct, sustainability and resilience in part of their renewable-energy auctions from December 30, 2025. (eur-lex.europa.eu) (ec.europa.eu) European officials and analysts have been laying the groundwork for tougher treatment of Chinese energy hardware for months. A January 2026 brief from the European Union Institute for Security Studies urged the bloc to exclude Chinese components from Connecting Europe Facility for Energy-funded projects, citing cyber and dependency risks in grid-connected equipment. (iss.europa.eu) Washington and Brussels are using different tools, but both are putting more weight on administrative chokepoints than on headline bans. One side is slowing physical shipments through license queues, and the other is steering demand through funding rules and auction criteria. (finance.yahoo.com) (eur-lex.europa.eu) The next test is whether those back-office controls harden into durable policy. For chipmakers and energy developers, the constraint is no longer only what can be built or bought, but which applications get signed and which projects still qualify for public money. (bis.gov) (scmp.com)
