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The USA... too big for their boots?

There is a saying "too big for their boots" which has fallen out of common usage in recent times but this seems to be the perfect time to resurect it.

I'm talking about an edict from the US government in respect to Chinese chipmaker Huawei and its customers -- wherever they may be in the world.

Huawei is a huge chip-maker who has been very busy trying to fill the gap created by US restrictions on the export of some processors, such as those used in AI systems and apparently they're doing pretty well at coming up with alternatives for the Sino market.

The world's leading AI processor maker, NVIDIA has been restricted by the USA from selling its most powerful chips to China and Taiwanese FAB TSMC have also been told they can't make high-end chips for the Sino market. This leaves China with no option but to become self-sufficient in this area.

According to reports, Huawei is doing a surprisingly good job of creating indigenous high-end AI chips in a family of devices called Ascend.

Using their own FAB, China is able to now get around a 40 percent yieled which, although still far short of TSMC's 60 percent figure, is enough to make production commercially viable at the Chinese run Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) facility.

Clearly, the USA is not best pleased by the fact that China is making such significant progress, perhaps to the point where they will obtain parity with chips made in the West. With AI being seen as a critical element of everything from entertainment, through industry to defense, the US does not want an already rapidly growing opposition superpower to gain an edge there.

The response from the USA has been to threaten any companies that use artificial intelligence chips made by Huawei with criminal penalties for doing so.

And... they're not just talking about US-based companies -- they're warning *all* companies in all countries not to use Huawei chips or they risk facing the wrath of the US justice system.

WTF?

This reminds me of the situation with Kim Dotcom. He's a German-Finish national who has never set foot in the USA yet is being extradited to be judged by that country's courts.

So can the USA really claim jurisdiction over companies that have no US presence and therefore should be operating completely outside its legal system?

Apparently so... or at least they think so.

The claim made by the US government is that their laws apply to users of the Ascend chips made by Huawei because they almost certainly contained, or were made with, US technology and are therefore subject to US export controls.

"Almost certainly"?

Really?

Is that enough of a case to bring legal action?

I would have thought that the threshold of proof for such serious legal action would be far greater than simply a possibility, regardless of how high that possibility might be.

Hell, we don't even prosecute such low-level offending as speeding on the claim that someone "almost certainly" exceeded the posted limit so is this enough reason to bring international enforcment action against a company that just buys chips from a Chinese manufacturer?

Sadly, we live in a world where commonsense, logic and reason have been displaced by lunacy and protectionism -- at least in the USA so I suspect that, at least in their minds, the US government believe they're doing the right thing.

Perhaps now you can see why "too big for their boots" is an apt label.

Carpe Diem folks!

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