(Washington) American companies will no longer be able to freely invest abroad in the most advanced technologies, in the forefront of which artificial intelligence (AI) or quantum computing, if it concerns “problem countries”, citing in particular China, the Treasury Department said in a statement Wednesday.
The decision, resulting from an executive order signed by President Joe Biden, must help “defend American national security by protecting the critical technologies of the next generation of military innovations”, specified the Treasury, which also underlines the “strictly limited” aspect of the decree in order to “maintain our commitment to cross-border investment”.
In concrete terms, the new rules require American companies and individuals to inform the administration of certain types of transactions and outright prohibit others when they involve “entities related to the advanced technologies identified in the decree”.
“China assumes its desire to acquire and produce essential key technologies that can help modernize its military, this decree aims precisely to limit American investments in companies involved in this effort”, explained during a conference press phone a Biden government official.
The administration’s fear is that China will benefit from U.S. investment not only in terms of technology transfer, but also through “intangible benefits,” such as support in setting up production lines, knowledge exchange and market access.
“At the last G7 Summit, leaders underscored our common interest in appropriately protecting sensitive technologies with national security implications, and the value of investment controls in this regard,” he said. -on added from the same source.
However, the decree should not concern certain types of transactions, as long as they concern listed companies or branches of American companies.
“This is a big step forward,” said PIIE researcher Nicholas Lardy, “because it’s not just about export restrictions anymore, but now also about capital, which hasn’t been possible so far.” arrived “.
But he believes that if the United States seeks alone to “cut funding from private equity funds or from venture capital”, the effect could ultimately be limited?
In addition, while the volume of transactions and their total amount affected by these restrictions could ultimately be very small, the real impact of this decision could be wider, believes for her part Emily Benson, project director on trade and technologies for CSIS.
“It is possible that, even if they are not directly targeted by the bans, some companies could think twice about the type of investments they could make, which could reduce long-term two-way investments,” said- she added.
This new decision is a further step in American attempts to prevent China from reducing the technological gap that currently exists between the two superpowers.
Last October, the United States announced that it would strengthen export controls on high-end semiconductors “used in military applications” to China.
The Netherlands and Japan, also producers of semiconductors, followed in the footsteps of the United States last March, with China responding in turn by announcing restrictions on exports of certain products, including the rare metals necessary for the manufacture of semiconductors.
Fearing additional restrictions on exports, Chinese tech giants have rushed to buy chips needed for new generative AI systems from the American Nvidia, according to the Financial Times.
According to the business daily, Baidu, ByteDance, Tencent and Alibaba have placed orders totaling about $1 billion to acquire the valuable components this year, along with 4 billion orders for graphics processors to be delivered in 2024.
Nvidia’s ultra-sophisticated semiconductors have been in high demand ever since the launch of ChatGPT ushered in an intense race for generative AI.
On a visit to China last July, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen stressed the desire to have precise and targeted measures and not with the aim of completely decoupling the economies of the two main world powers.
“I recalled that our measures are very targeted and centered on a few sectors for which we have fears in terms of national security”, declared Ms. Yellen at the time, recalling at the same time that the objective “is not to cause a complete disruption of “American” investment in China.
