AMD chief says company ready to pay 15 per cent tax on AI chip shipments to China

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) chips are displayed at the Micro Center computer store in Santa Clara, Calif., Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2011. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)

SAN FRANCISCO — Advanced Micro Devices CEO Lisa Su on Thursday said the company has licenses to ship some of its MI 308 chips to China and is prepared to pay a 15 per cent tax to the U.S. government if it ships them.

Su made the remarks at a conference held by technology publication Wired in San Francisco.

U.S. President Donald Trump in August said his administration had reached a deal with Nvidia and AMD under which they could resume shipping some chips to China in exchange for paying a 15 per cent fee, a move some legal experts argued could violate the U.S. Constitution’s ban on taxing exports.

In response to the latest U.S. move, China’s foreign ministry on Friday urged the American side to take concrete actions to maintain the stability and smooth operation of the world’s supply chains.

AMD’s MI308 AI accelerator is a downgraded version of its Instinct MI300X series, designed to comply with U.S. export controls for sale to China. The chip was placed under export restrictions alongside Nvidia’s H20 in April.

The Chinese government has issued guidance requiring new data center projects that have received state funds to only use homemade artificial intelligence chips, a move that is likely to affect U.S. firms Nvidia, AMD and Intel.

(Reporting by Max Cherney in San Francisco, writing by Stephen Nellis in San Francisco and Che Pan in Beijing, editing by Chris Reese and Thomas Derpinghaus)