Although Huawei cannot legally obtain advanced chips made by TSMC, the company used shell companies last year to obtain compute chiplets for its Ascend 910 AI chips. The conspiracy was discovered by TechInsights and TSMC, which ceased to ship chiplets to Huawei's proxies and initiated an internal investigation. However, it was not clear how many chiplets it supplied to Huawei. According to a report by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Huawei obtained as many as two million Ascend 910 AI chiplets.
"However, TSMC manufactured large quantities of Huawei Ascend 910B chips on behalf of Huawei shell companies and shipped the chips to China in violation of U.S. export controls," the report by CSIS reads.
