By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States has no evidence that Chinese manufacturer Huawei is capable of producing smartphones with advanced chips in large quantities, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said on Tuesday.
Huawei recently began selling its Mate 60 Pro phone containing a chip that analysts say was made thanks to a technological breakthrough from Chinese chip foundry Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC).
“We have no evidence that they can make seven-nanometer chips at scale,” Raimondo said at a hearing in the U.S. House of Representatives, referring to an advanced chip.
Starting in 2019, the United States barred Huawei from access to certain chipmaking tools, calling Huawei a security risk, which the company denies. The US government has said Huawei poses “unacceptable” national security risks due to the threat of espionage on US telecommunications networks.
The Commerce Department said this month it was working to obtain more information “on the character and composition” of the chip that may violate trade restrictions because it said it must have been manufactured with American technology.
Raimondo told the House Science Committee hearing that she was upset by the report advanced on the Huawei smartphone.
Some Republicans believe the Commerce Department should end all technology exports to Huawei and SMIC.
The chairmen of the Foreign Affairs, Energy and Commerce, Armed Services and China committees last week urged the Commerce Department to stop granting licenses to Huawei and SMIC, and said that they called for additional U.S. pressure “and more effective controls on exports of our products.” opponents. »
Raimondo declined to say after the hearing whether she planned to terminate all of Huawei’s licenses.
Republican Rep. Darrell Issa said during the hearing that Raimondo was in China when the new Huawei phone was announced.
“You were shocked to say the least by the launch of a 5G phone,” Issa said.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said this month that the U.S. government was trying to get more information about the Huawei chip.
Raimondo also told reporters that the Chinese government’s apparent ban on the use of Apple iPhones was “concerning.”
(Reporting by David Shepardson; editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Josie Kao)
