New China Export Controls for Rare Earths in Chips (twitter.com)

China has announced new export controls targeting rare earths and related critical minerals used in advanced chipmaking and photonics — measures that reportedly tighten licensing, end‑use checks and quotas for materials that feed AI accelerators, RF devices and optical components. While official lists and implementation details are still emerging, reports name both traditional rare‑earths (used in high‑performance magnets and specialty alloys) and critical semiconductors feedstocks (e.g., gallium, germanium and indium) as likely to face stricter scrutiny. The announcement is part of Beijing’s broader industrial‑security playbook to control upstream inputs to high‑tech supply chains. For the AI/ML community this raises immediate supply‑chain and cost risks: tighter exports could drive price spikes and shortages for GPUs, ASICs and photonic components central to training and inference, incentivizing stockpiling, supplier diversification, recycling and material‑substitution R&D. Technically, the move pressures chipmakers to redesign around alternative materials or tighten fabrication footprints, and pushes governments and fabs to accelerate onshoring of refinement capacity. Watch for the final controlled‑materials list, license criteria and targeted end users — those specifics will determine whether this becomes a temporary disruption or a durable strategic constraint on global AI hardware deployment.