China could face more chip restrictions in 2024, analysts say
A Chinese flag is displayed next to a “Made in China” sign seen on a printed circuit board with semiconductor chips, in this illustration picture taken February 17, 2023.
Florence Lo | Reuters
China could face more semiconductor export curbs from the likes of the U.S. and the Netherlands to contain the Asian powerhouse’s chip tech, analysts told CNBC.
Earlier this year, the Netherlands blocked Dutch semiconductor equipment maker ASML from exporting some of its deep ultraviolet lithography systems to China. ASML sells lithography machines that are key to manufacturing advanced chips.
It came after the U.S. tightened export controls on advanced semiconductors and chipmaking tools to China in October last year, building on previous rules. Washington is concerned that Beijing could use these advanced chips in artificial intelligence and military applications.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s more [U.S. restrictions] coming just because we’re still in the middle of this tit-for-tat. And there’s a lot of hawks in the U.S. that are really concerned about China’s military buildup,” said Dan Hutcheson, vice chair and senior research fellow at TechInsights, on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” Tuesday.
Beijing slammed the Dutch government’s move, urging the Netherlands to “uphold an objective and fair position and market principles.”
China’s Ministry of Commerce said last week that the U.S. is weaponizing export controls as a tool, adding that it is “highly concerned about the U.S.’s direct intervention” in the issue of high-tech exports by Dutch companies to China.
“It’s further evidence that not just the U.S. government, but also other Western countries like the Dutch government, are going to keep ratcheting up some of the restrictions that we’ve seen around both chipmaking equipment and also advanced semiconductors,” Chris Miller, author of “Chip War” told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” in early January.
In October, the U.S. banned the sales of the A800 and H800 chips that Nvidia specifically manufactured for the Chinese market.
Nvidia’s less powerful A800 and H800 chips were developed after the U.S. government banned shipments of the A100 and H100 chips — which are advanced graphics processing units sold to businesses — to China in August 2022.
With [U.S.] elections impending and political tension continuing to exist in the Taiwan Strait, it’s hard to envision a meaningful pull back on restrictions. If anything, I see further tightening.
Daniel Newman
Principal analyst, Futurum Research
This led Nvidia to launch even less powerful chips in China in December to comply with U.S. export restrictions.
“The U.S. government has signaled that they’re planning to roll out new export controls that do close loopholes on a regular basis,” said Miller.
China’s imports of integrated circuits in 2023 plunged amid U.S. curbs, falling 15.4% year-on-year to $349.4 billion in 2023, according to customs data released on Friday (Jan. 12). Shipment volume also declined by 10.8%, the data showed.
“With [U.S.] elections impending and political tension continuing to exist in the Taiwan Strait, it’s hard to envision a meaningful pull back on restrictions. If anything, I see further tightening,” Daniel Newman, principal analyst at Futurum Research, told CNBC last week.
China opposes Taiwan independence and has urged the U.S. to “stop arming Taiwan,” according to a readout on Jan. 10.
China seeks self-reliance
Western efforts to contain China’s high-tech progress have pushed the economic giant to look to its domestic firms to be self-reliant.
Since 2019, the U.S. has slapped sanctions on Chinese tech firms such as Huawei and China’s largest chipmaker SMIC, forcing Beijing to boost its domestic industry.
Revenue of China’s top 10 chip-equipment makers surged 39% in the first half of 2023 compared to a year earlier, according to Shanghai-based CINNO Research.
“I do think the short-term provides an advantage to the West, but China will do everything in its power to be sure it isn’t left out of the chip race,” said Futurum’s Newman.
China has traditionally been dependent on foreign firms for critical components.
After the Dutch government revoked the export license of ASML, Beijing no longer has access to some of the most advanced chipmaking tools in the world.
China has also been barred from importing ASML’s extreme ultraviolet lithography machines, which companies like Taiwan’s TSMC need to make the smallest and most sophisticated chips.
Chief executive officer of Google Sundar Pichai.
Marek Antoni Iwanczuk | Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images
Google on Friday made the latest a splash in the AI talent wars, announcing an agreement to bring in Varun Mohan, co-founder and CEO of artificial intelligence coding startup Windsurf.
As part of the deal, Google will also hire other senior Windsurf research and development employees. Google is not investing in Windsurf, but the search giant will take a nonexclusive license to certain Windsurf technology, according to a person familiar with the matter. Windsurf remains free to license its technology to others.
“We’re excited to welcome some top AI coding talent from Windsurf’s team to Google DeepMind to advance our work in agentic coding,” a Google spokesperson wrote in an email. “We’re excited to continue bringing the benefits of Gemini to software developers everywhere.”
The deal between Google and Windsurf comes after the AI coding startup had been in talks with OpenAI for a $3 billion acquisition deal, CNBC reported in April. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The move ratchets up the talent war in AI particularly among prominent companies. Meta has made lucrative job offers to several employees at OpenAI in recent weeks. Most notably, the Facebook parent added Scale AI founder Alexandr Wang to lead its AI strategy as part of a $14.3 billion investment into his startup.
Douglas Chen, another Windsurf co-founder, will be among those joining Google in the deal, Jeff Wang, the startup’s new interim CEO and its head of business for the past two years, wrote in a post on X.
“Most of Windsurf’s world-class team will continue to build the Windsurf product with the goal of maximizing its impact in the enterprise,” Wang wrote.
Windsurf has become more popular this year as an option for so-called vibe coding, which is the process of using new age AI tools to write code. Developers and non-developers have embraced the concept, leading to more revenue for Windsurf and competitors, such as Cursor, which OpenAI also looked at buying. All the interest has led investors to assign higher valuations to the startups.
This isn’t the first time Google has hired select people out of a startup. It did the same with Character.AI last summer. Amazon and Microsoft have also absorbed AI talent in this fashion, with the Adept and Inflection deals, respectively.
Microsoft is pushing an agent mode in its Visual Studio Code editor for vibe coding. In April, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said AI is composing as much of 30% of his company’s code.
The Verge reported the Google-Windsurf deal earlier on Friday.
Technology
Nvidia’s Jensen Huang sells more than $36 million in stock, catches Warren Buffett in net worth
Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, holds a motherboard as he speaks during the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France, on June 11, 2025.
Gonzalo Fuentes | Reuters
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang unloaded roughly $36.4 million worth of stock in the leading artificial intelligence chipmaker, according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
The sale, which totals 225,000 shares, comes as part of Huang’s previously adopted plan in March to unload up to 6 million shares of Nvidia through the end of the year. He sold his first batch of stock from the agreement in June, equaling about $15 million.
Last year, the tech executive sold about $700 million worth of shares as part of a prearranged plan. Nvidia stock climbed about 1% Friday.
Huang’s net worth has skyrocketed as investors bet on Nvidia’s AI dominance and graphics processing units powering large language models.
The 62-year-old’s wealth has grown by more than a quarter, or about $29 billion, since the start of 2025 alone, based on Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index. His net worth last stood at $143 billion in the index, putting him neck-and-neck with Berkshire Hathaway‘s Warren Buffett at $144 billion.
Shortly after the market opened Friday, Fortune‘s analysis of net worth had Huang ahead of Buffett, with the Nvidia CEO at $143.7 billion and the Oracle of Omaha at $142.1 billion.
The company has also achieved its own notable milestones this year, as it prospers off the AI boom.
On Wednesday, the Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker became the first company to top a $4 trillion market capitalization, beating out both Microsoft and Apple. The chipmaker closed above that milestone Thursday as CNBC reported that the technology titan met with President Donald Trump.
Brooke Seawell, venture partner at New Enterprise Associates, sold about $24 million worth of Nvidia shares, according to an SEC filing. Seawell has been on the company’s board since 1997, according to the company.
Huang still holds more than 858 million shares of Nvidia, both directly and indirectly, in different partnerships and trusts.
WATCH: Nvidia hits $4 trillion in market cap milestone despite curbs on chip exports
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