RISC-V technology emerges as battleground in US-China tech war

BEIJING, Oct 07 (Reuters): In a new front in the US-China tech war, President Joe Biden's administration is facing pressure from some lawmakers to restrict American companies from working on a freely available chip technology widely used in China - a move that could upend how the global technology industry collaborates across borders.

At issue is RISC-V, pronounced "risk five," an open-source technology that competes with costly proprietary technology from British semiconductor and software design company Arm Holdings. RISC-V can be used as a key ingredient for anything from a smartphone chip to advanced processors for artificial intelligence.

Some lawmakers - including two Republican House of Representatives committee chairmen, Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Democratic Senator Mark Warner - are urging Biden's administration to take action regarding RISC-V, citing national security grounds. The lawmakers expressed concerns that Beijing is exploiting a culture of open collaboration among American companies to advance its own semiconductor industry, which could erode the current US lead in the chip field and help China modernize its military. Their comments represent the first major effort to put constraints on work by US companies on RISC-V.

Representative Mike Gallagher, chairman of the House select committee on China, said in a statement to Reuters that the Commerce Department needs to "require any American person or company to receive an export license prior to engaging with PRC (People's Republic of China) entities on RISC-V technology."

Such calls to regulate RISC-V are the latest in the US-China battle over chip technology that escalated last year with sweeping export restrictions that the Biden administration has told China it will update this month.

"The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) is abusing RISC-V to get around US dominance of the intellectual property needed to design chips. US persons should not be supporting a PRC tech transfer strategy that serves to degrade US export control laws," Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement to Reuters.

McCaul said he wants action from the Bureau of Industry and Security, the part of the Commerce Department that oversees export-control regulations, and would pursue legislation if that does not materialize.