US senators have asked the intelligence community to investigate the threat a potential deal between Apple and Chinese chipmaker Yangtze Memory Technologies Co poses to national security, as political pressure exerted on the iPhone maker over the deal escalated.
Mark Warner, Democratic chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Republican vice chairman Marco Rubio wrote to Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines asking for a review just days after the Financial Times reported that Apple was considering buying memory chips from YMTC to buy for the new iPhone 14.
“We are writing to express our extreme concern over the possibility that Apple Inc. will soon source 3D NAND memory chips from Yangtze Memory Technologies Co,” the senators said. “Such a decision would introduce significant privacy and security vulnerabilities into the global digital supply chain that Apple is helping to shape, given YMTC’s extensive but often opaque ties to the Chinese Communist Party.”
The FT has reported that YMTC has supplied memory chips to Huawei, the controversial Chinese telecom giant, for at least two phones, including its foldable flagship Mate Xs 2. This would be a possible violation of a US export control that effectively blocks companies from supplying products with American technology to Huawei.
Government and industry experts believe that all Chinese chipmakers use US technology as American chip design software and manufacturing tools are ubiquitous in all semiconductor supply chains.
Apple recently told the FT that it was “evaluating” sourcing YMTC for some iPhones in China. Apple on Thursday declined to comment on the letter to Haines, which was also signed by Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas.
The senators asked Haines to review the risks an Apple-YMTC deal would pose to economic and national security. They asked her to investigate how the Chinese Communist Party is using YMTC to boost its domestic chip industry and oust semiconductor manufacturers from the US and allied countries. They also called for an investigation into the role YMTC allegedly plays in helping Chinese companies, including Huawei, circumvent US sanctions.
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YMTC is just one of many Chinese tech companies increasingly under scrutiny in Washington. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said last week the US needs to reevaluate its longstanding premise that it needs to retain a “relative” advantage over peers, including in chips, where it “previously maintained a sliding approach that said we should.” need to be just a few generations ahead”.
“That’s not the strategic environment that we’re in today,” Sullivan told SCSP, a think tank focused on improving US technology in critical areas. “Given the fundamental nature of certain technologies, such as advanced logic and memory chips, we need to keep as much of a lead as possible.”
The US Department of Commerce is working on a series of measures that would make it harder for certain chip-related technologies to be exported to China in a bid to slow its efforts to build up its domestic industry.
Additional reporting by Patrick McGee. consequences Demetri Sevastopulo on twitter