Washington is reportedly putting together import restrictions on Chinese optical transceivers, the latest front in a campaign against data center components from China that already covers drones, routers, inverters and robots. Reuters, citing people familiar with the matter, says the White House wants the curbs in place this year. Beijing has warned it will hit back if the measure moves forward.
Optical transceivers move data between servers in AI data centers, and Washington’s stated concern is that Chinese-made units could be used to steal data, install malware or disrupt services inside US networks. The expected approach is a blanket import ban with exemptions for friendly non-Chinese suppliers, avoiding a repeat of the Huawei experience, where installed switchgear had to be ripped out of US telecom networks at great cost.
The report lifted shares of US suppliers Lumentum, Coherent and Applied Optoelectronics. By contrast, Innolight, which controls roughly 27 percent of the global transceiver market and is China’s biggest maker, faces the heaviest exposure. Transceivers are a high-volume, essential part of GPU clusters, so any disruption would be felt across AI data center buildouts.
Beijing accused Washington of smearing Chinese companies and threatening them with sanctions. The move is the latest escalation in chip-related trade controls, following export curbs on advanced AI processors, and it could push cloud providers and server makers to shift transceiver sourcing away from Chinese vendors.
