US authorities are preparing to impose sanctions against the Chinese company Sophgo, suspected of supplying chips to Huawei

In October, it became known that the analytical company TechInsights suspected the Chinese company Sophgo of supplying Huawei with advanced Ascend 910B chips, which it ordered on its behalf for production by TSMC under conditions of sanctions against the final recipient. Now US authorities are preparing to add Sophgo to the sanctions list.

This became known to Reuters from informed sources, although Huawei representatives continue to insist that they have stopped receiving chips produced by TSMC since 2020, and Sophgo notes that after Huawei was included in the US sanctions list, it did not have any direct or indirect ties with the company. It is known from open sources that Sophgo supplies various government agencies at the municipal level in China and universities with its products. In particular, the police department uses Sophgo components to improve video surveillance systems.

Apparently, the attempts of the Chinese company Sophgo, associated with Bitmain, to prove its non-involvement in the supply of computational accelerator chips produced by TSMC for the needs of Huawei, bypassing US export restrictions, had no effect on American officials, since Sophgo, based on past conclusions, is preparing to be included in the sanctions list . It was also previously reported that TSMC, in order to prevent such violations, stopped supplying 7nm and more modern chips to any Chinese clients related to the field of artificial intelligence. Accordingly, TSMC also stopped supplying chips for Sophgo’s needs.