The publication of the list is an indication of China’s growing efforts to replace Western technology with locally developed products

AMD and Intel do not appear on the list of processors approved by China’s Information Security Assessment Center, The Register reports. A December 26, 2023 document lists 18 processors that Beijing has approved as suitable for use by locals. The x86 architecture is included on the list, but only in chips manufactured by Shanghai Zhaoxin Integrated Circuit Co. Ltd – which is minority owned by Taiwan’s Via Technologies and holds a license to produce x86 processors.

Zhaoxin’s processors aren’t as powerful as Intel’s Xeons or AMD’s Epycs, but they can power some desktops.

The list also includes approved desktop and server operating systems. Only Chinese code is present, namely:

• Galaxy Kirin Linux developed by China National University of Defense Technology;
• Tongxin OS, a Debian variant developed by Shanghai-based UnionTech;
• Fangde OS, another Chinese project;

In addition to chips and operating systems, the list also includes databases, but nothing from Western developers made the cut. Again, China relies on its own established projects such as Alibaba Cloud’s PolarDB, Tencent’s TDSQL and a few others.

The publication of the list is an indication of China’s growing efforts to replace Western technology with locally developed products.

The Financial Times spoke to some IT shops in China, which confirmed that they are phasing out products such as Windows PCs as “shop from home” regulations have come into force.

These provisions were first proposed in 2014. As of May 2022. They were re-introduced. A deadline of two years for their implementation was also set then. This means that China has just five weeks to switch to using indigenous hardware and software.

However, many Chinese companies have already developed applications and automations based on Western technology. According to market observers, rebuilding these tools will be neither a quick nor an easy task. Whether this is the final date after which China will not use Western-created technologies is unclear, given that past edicts to switch to Chinese-only technologies have been repeated several times.