China blacklists major chip research firm TechInsights following Huawei report (www.cnbc.com)

China’s Commerce Ministry has labeled Canadian semiconductor research firm TechInsights an “unreliable entity,” effectively banning Chinese individuals and organizations from sharing information with the company. The move follows TechInsights’ teardown finding that Huawei’s latest “Ascend” AI chips contain components sourced from outside mainland China — a conclusion echoed by other researchers such as SemiAnalysis — including parts linked to memory suppliers like Samsung and contract foundry TSMC. Beijing framed the action as a national security measure; TechInsights is known for reverse engineering and public chip analyses that have previously exposed supply-chain details for Huawei products. The designation matters for the AI/ML community because it reduces independent visibility into the provenance and makeup of key AI accelerators, complicating hardware auditing, benchmarking, and reproducibility. TechInsights’ reporting raised questions about how effectively U.S. export controls and blacklists (Huawei has been restricted since 2019) prevent advanced component flows; analysts say firms have used loopholes and stockpiles to maintain access. The blacklist could accelerate China’s push for semiconductor self-sufficiency, further fragment hardware ecosystems, and make third-party verification of chip claims harder — increasing risk for researchers, cloud providers, and companies that depend on transparent hardware supply chains for performance, security, and compliance assessments.