China bans Intel and AMD CPUs from government computers

The feud between the USA and China continues. As the Financial Times reports, the Asian superpower has now banned the use of Intel and AMD processors on government computers and notebooks. Operating systems from Microsoft are also taboo from now on.

China bans Intel and AMD CPUs for government use

Potential tariff barriers for e-cars from China, heavy losses for US chip manufacturer Micron: the trade war between the USA and China knows no bounds. Now, according to a report, the Chinese government has even banned Intel and AMD processors on government systems.

The government is basing the ban on “data security concerns” and wants to guarantee that the systems have “secure and reliable” equipment installed, according to the report. Furthermore, government departments at a local level are even said to have been instructed not to use Microsoft Windows as their primary operating system. In principle, all software should be replaced by local solutions wherever possible.

Shortly beforehand, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology had published a list of CPUs that conform to the government’s strategies, including unnamed manufacturers from China, with Huawei in particular likely to be at the forefront.

Huge financial losses

For Intel and AMD, this somewhat surprising decision is likely to be a slap in the face and also entail high financial losses. After all, Intel generated almost 27% of its total revenue in China in 2022, according to its own report.

The beneficiaries of the matter are, of course, companies based in China. Such as Huawei or Loongson, which are working flat out on their own CPU solutions. Huawei’s HiSilicon chips have recently achieved enormous improvements and can now even keep up with AMD Zen 3 CPUs, as Tom’s Hardware reported at the end of February. At least as far as single-core performance is concerned.