According to a recent report by the Financial Times (FT), the Chinese government’s procurement policy is gradually shifting away from chips and operating systems from the United States, including Intel, AMD, and Windows. This policy change affects government agencies and state-owned enterprises.
The report is based on the release of the “Government Procurement Requirements for Desktop Computers” by the Chinese Ministry of Finance on December 26th last year. The document requires specific levels of party and government institutions and directly affiliated government entities to include CPU and operating system requirements that meet security and reliability assessments in their desktop computer procurement. On the same day, the China Information Security Evaluation Center published the security and reliability assessment results for basic software and hardware, including CPUs, operating systems, and databases, listing products that meet the defined reliability criteria.
It’s important to note that the Chinese government did not explicitly mention blocking products from the United States in these documents. Neither of the documents referred to the United States or specific U.S. product names. However, the list of products considered safe and reliable consists entirely of Chinese products. This includes 18 CPUs from various Chinese manufacturers, 6 operating systems developed in China, and 11 databases developed by different Chinese companies.
The Financial Times cited sources reporting that Chinese state-owned enterprises began presenting progress on IT system transformations through quarterly reports since last year.
China is attempting to reduce its reliance on the United States through policy measures. However, currently, various departments and state-owned enterprises are still allowed to purchase limited quantities of U.S. products such as Intel, AMD, or Windows.