Chinese chip designer Xiamen Sophgo — a firm with links to Bitmain — has denied any business relationship with Huawei, after Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) cut dealings with it following a United States probe into potential sanctions violations.
According to an Oct. 27 report from Reuters, Sophgo ordered chips from TMSC that matched the ones found on Huawei’s Ascend 910B, citing two people familiar with the matter.
The US Department of Commerce launched an investigation into whether TSMC knowingly supplied chips to Huawei, which has been subject to US sanctions since 2020 due to national security concerns, according to an Oct. 17 report from The Information.
However, Sophgo denied having any business relationship with Huawei in an official statement on its website.
Sophgo said the US probe into TSMC and Huawei was not related to Sophgo and its product and had never engaged directly or indirectly with Huawei. “Sophgo has been conducting business in strict compliance with applicable laws and regulations,” added Sophgo.
Sophgo denied any business relationship with Huawei in an official statement. Source: Sophgo
The US Commerce Department and TSMC reportedly found that “chips TSMC made for Xiamen Sophgo had designs similar to those of Huawei’s artificial intelligence chips” according to The Information — also citing two people familiar with the matter.
Related: US tech exec warns China is ‘a decade ahead’ on quantum
Sophgo was founded in 2019 by Bitmain co-founder Micree Zhan. Bitmain and Sophgo still reportedly share several domain registries and email directories to this day.
Bitmain began looking into AI chip development in 2018 at the direction of Zhan, in a bid to bolster its chip offerings outside of crypto.
This shift in strategy created tension between Zhan and fellow co-founder Jihan Wu, who said the company should remain focused entirely on producing Bitcoin mining rigs.
Ultimately this point of difference — along with other issues — caused Zhan to be removed from the company in October 2019. Zhan’s sudden ousting came as he was introducing Bitmain’s “third generation” AI Chip — the Sophgo BM1684 — at a tech conference in China.
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