China includes AI chips in secure tech list amid US curbs

For the first time, China has included AI chips in its official ‘secure and reliable’ technology assessments. The China Information Technology Security Evaluation Centre and the National Secrecy Science and Technology Evaluation Centre released the latest batch of evaluations on Tuesday, creating a new category for ‘AI training and inference chips’. These certifications are valid for three years and are widely viewed as the definitive procurement catalogue for party and government agencies, central state-owned enterprises, and other state-linked customers under the Xinchuang initiative. Xinchuang, meaning information technology application innovation, is Beijing’s long-running campaign to purge foreign hardware and software from sensitive systems.

This expansion signals that China’s technology replacement drive is pivoting towards AI infrastructure. Initially focused on phasing out US suppliers like Intel, AMD, and Oracle, Beijing is now targeting Nvidia and other foreign providers of AI computing power. The push has gained urgency following successive rounds of US export controls that restricted Chinese access to advanced graphics processing units (GPUs). By requiring AI chips to pass state security assessments, China is creating a regulatory framework that favors domestic alternatives, potentially disrupting Nvidia’s dominant position in the Chinese market.