The Chinese government has announced revised regulations for the protection of integrated-circuit designs, in a move intended to safeguard the intellectual property of domestic AI chip breakthroughs, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency.

The publication reported that Li Qiang, premier of the People’s Republic of China, has signed a revision to the Regulations on the Protection of Layout-Designs of Integrated Circuits law that came into effect in 2001 to expand its scope to reflect today’s chip market.

Revisions include widening the definition of integrated circuits protected under the regulation to include those with “photonic, quantum, or other functions”, per the China IP Law Update blog.

In commentary posted directly to the Chinese Ministry of Justice website Cui Guobin, professor at the Tsinghua University’s School of Law, welcomed other additions such as outlining specific rates of remuneration owed to individuals whose chip designs have been commercialised, as well as a “punitive damages system” for design infringement.

Chinese chip giants include Huawei, which the Financial Times recently reported is set to reap a 60 per cent increase in chips sales this year, as well DRAM memory manufacturer as ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) which saw a 470 per cent surge in shares last week as it made its Shanghai Stock Exchange debut.

In July, the AI firm DeepSeek also announced plans to develop its own AI chips to reduce dependence on Nvidia and Huawei chips. DeepSeek has historically trained models using H800 chips, at the time the only models the US government allowed to be sold in China, as well as Huawei Ascend 910C and Ascend 950 chips.

The US government has previously accused Chinese AI firms of smuggling Nvidia chips into their territory via Taiwan. In March, the Department of Justice charged the co-founder of tech firm Super Micro Computer and two others for allegedly conspiring to smuggle $2.5 billion worth of Nvidia chips into China via Taiwan.

Nvidia has responded to by halving its list of approved Asian customers, running more manual checks on contacts and data centres, and interviewing customers to verify their legitimacy.

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