Alibaba Group Holding and Biren Technology, Chinese tech companies, have resorted to changing the specifications of their chip designs in order to lower the processing speeds and circumvent sanctions introduced by the United States, which were placed in an effort to conceal China's computing power, the Financial Times reported, citing subjects familiar with the matter.
According to the sources, following Washington's bans, which were put into place last month, both Alibaba and Biren had to freeze manufacturing so as to be able to change their designs for any semiconductors shipped into China.
One of the people shared that Alibaba’s T-Head semiconductor unit is currently working on developing adjustments to the new 5-nanometer processor. However, as per the source, such changes would take months to be test-run by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TMSC) and would cost over $10 million.
