US-China tech war is coming for AI’s plumbing

The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is reportedly considering a ban on Chinese optical transceivers, signalling that the US-China tech war is expanding beyond the focus on semiconductor chips to shadow even the smallest link in the chain of essential artificial intelligence (AI) hardware. Optical transceivers are small devices that use fibre optic technology to send and receive data as light. The key application of these optical modules is the quick transmission of large amounts of...