US Plans Ban on New Chinese Data Center Parts

The Trump administration is preparing to ban imports of new Chinese-made optical transceivers and key components that move data through fiber-optic cables inside data centers as Reuters reported.

The Federal Communications Commission is drafting the rule and hopes to publish it this year. The move aims to protect the infrastructure powering the AI boom by preventing potential data theft, malware or service disruptions linked to Chinese-made equipment. Officials say the FCC could still revise or drop the plan.

The restriction would likely affect China's Zhongji Innolight, a leading global transceiver supplier that was added to the Pentagon's list of alleged Chinese military-linked companies in June. It could raise costs for U.S. cloud firms like Amazon Web Services, which may need to shift to American suppliers such as Coherent and Lumentum. However, experts note these companies currently lack the scale to fully replace Chinese vendors.

China's embassy in Washington criticized the move with urging the U.S. to avoid "smearing" Chinese firms and warning of countermeasures if its interests are harmed.

The plan follows similar FCC restrictions on Chinese-made drones, routers, robots and inverters. Officials say they want to prevent a repeat of the Huawei situation where deeply embedded telecom equipment proved difficult and costly to remove from U.S. networks.

The White House and FCC did not respond to requests for comment.