The Chinese government has begun phasing out the use of foreign chips and operating systems on government computers and servers. Although there may still be ways to use these products, their use is not recommended in principle.

China recently introduced new procurement rules for government agencies, meaning chips from US manufacturers are not allowed in principle Writes the Financial Times. Instead, these authorities must use Chinese hardware, although according to the newspaper’s sources, there are circuitous ways to obtain approval to purchase “foreign processors.” The Chinese government has imposed similar restrictions on the use of foreign operating systems for both computers and servers. Starting in 2027, China wants to take full advantage of the technology from its own companies, according to participants in the relevant government sector.

The China Center for Information Security Assessment, a government body, published a list of approved processors and operating systems several months ago, all of which are made by Chinese companies and government-sponsored parties. The certified processors use a variety of architectures, including Intel x86 architecture and Arm processors, as well as locally developed architectures, according to the paper. The operating systems on the list are said to be mainly derived from open source versions of Linux.

It is not clear to what extent the aforementioned American companies were financially affected by these measures. According to the Financial Times, China is the largest market for Intel’s sales at 27%, while AMD achieves 15% of its sales in the country. In contrast, the restrictions apply only to government regulations.

In theory, foreign parties could put their technology on the list of approved products. This requires relevant Chinese regulatory bodies to fully evaluate the R&D documents and core code. It is not known whether US export regulations or national cybersecurity laws will affect this process. China is not the only country that keeps foreign technology out of the government. For example, the United States bans the sale of Huawei and TikTok telecommunications equipment on government agencies.