By Kate Yuan

(JW Insights) Jul 17 -- America’s largest semiconductor companies are embarking on a last-ditch effort to head off new curbs on their sales to China, with senior executives traveling to Washington this week for talks with administration officials and lawmakers, Bloomberg reported on July 14.

The chief executive officers of Intel, Qualcomm and Nvidia are planning to lobby against extending restrictions on the sale to China of certain chips and the equipment to manufacture the semiconductors that the Biden administration is set to roll out in the coming weeks, people familiar with the matter said.

The Commerce Department in October issued rules that bar semiconductor equipment makers from selling certain tools to China, as well as prohibit the export of chips used in artificial intelligence applications. Now the US is considering new regulations that may come out by the end of July.

While they don’t expect to stave off all the actions, the companies are sensing a window of opportunity to convince the Biden team that an escalation would hurt the current diplomatic efforts by the White House to engage Chinese officials and establish a more productive relationship.

Qualcomm CEO Cristiano Amon gets more than 60% of his company’s revenue from the China region by supplying components to smartphone makers such as Xiaomi Corp. Intel’s Pat Gelsinger, who visited Beijing earlier this month to show off his company’s latest artificial intelligence chips, counts the nation as his biggest sales region. The country provides about a quarter of Intel’s sales. And for Nvidia, run by co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang, China provides about a fifth of revenue, according to the Bloomberg report.