Chinese developers, including Alibaba and startup Biren Technology, are deliberately slowing down their chips to avoid US sanctions. This is reported by the Financial Times.

This is required to continue working with Taiwanese chip manufacturer Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). According to Washington sanctions, when exporting chips to China, the bidirectional transmission speed should not exceed 600 GB/s.

Currently, TSMC offers customers from China to set the parameters of their chips themselves. According to FT, Biren previously stated a data transfer rate of 640GB/s for the BR100, while the website now claims it’s only 576GB/s. Analysts point out that this gimmick is designed to help maintain cooperation with TSMC, but the United States may also thwart this possibility – artificially slowing down the chip doesn’t guarantee that it won’t be able to run at full power in the future.