DECEMBER 2024
Understanding the Biden
Administration’s Updated
Export Controls
By Gregory C. Allen
O
n December 2, 2024, the Biden administration published two new (with more evidently
still to come) updates to the China AI and semiconductor export controls that it released
in October 2022. As with the rst Trump administration—which made major changes to
semiconductor export control policy during its nal months in oce—these late-term Biden export
controls are a bombshell. At a high level, the new controls take eight major actions:
1. Expanding country-wide chip-level export controls to restrict High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM), a
type of memory that is critical for AI applications;
2. Updating the list of advanced semiconductor manufacturing equipment (SME) that is restricted
on both a country-wide basis to include additional equipment for producing HBM, DRAM, and
advanced packaging;
3. Updating the list of SME that is restricted on an end-use and end-user basis to include additional
chokepoint technologies;
4. Dramatically expanding the scope of applicability of the Foreign Direct Product Rule (FDPR) on
exports of both chips and SME;
5. Oering exemptions and incentives to reward countries such as Japan and the Netherlands that
adopt domestic export controls aligned with U.S. policy and goals.
6. Adding new red-ag guidance to require more stringent due diligence on the part of exporters;
7. Adding 140 Chinese, Japanese, South Korean, and Singaporean entities to the Bureau of Industry
and Security (BIS)’s Entity List to address risk of diversion; and
8. Creating a powerful new license exception category called Restricted Fabrication Facility (RFF).
