The Biden administration announced on Thursday Chinese memory chip name YMTC along with 21 other signification members of the China's artificial intelligence chip industry were put on a U.S. trade blacklist.According to reporting from the South China Morning Post, that blacklist could include at least 36 Chinese companies that export memory chips to the United States.
The move is said to try and restrict China's ability to leverage technology to modernize its military, and to try and prevent human rights abuses. Alan Estevez, the US Commerce Department’s industry and security undersecretary, said, “Today we are building on the actions we took in October to protect US national security by severely restricting the PRC’s ability to leverage artificial intelligence, advanced computing, and other powerful, commercially available technologies for military modernization and human rights abuses."