Samsung, SK Hynix Granted Licenses to Export Chipmaking Gear to China
By Reuters | 30 Dec, 2025

The licenses are a reluctant recognition that refusal of the licenses would merely encourage domestic Chinese chipmakers to step into the void.

The U.S. government has granted an annual licence to Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix to bring in chip manufacturing equipment to their facilities in China for 2026, two people familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.

The approval is a temporary relief for the South Korean firms and follows a U.S. decision earlier this year to revoke licence waivers given to some tech companies.

One of the sources said that Washington introduced the annual approval system for exports of chipmaking tools to China.

Samsung, SK Hynix and TSMC had benefited from exemptions to Washington's sweeping restrictions on chip-related exports to China. But the privilege known as validated end user status will end on December 31, meaning shipments of American chipmaking tools to their factories in China after that date will require U.S. export licences.

Samsung and SK Hynix declined to comment while TSMC did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The U.S. Department of Commerce was not immediately available for comment outside business hours.

Keen to limit China's access to advanced American technology, U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has been re-examining export controls that it thought were too relaxed under the Biden administration.     

South Korea's Samsung Electronics, the world's top memory chipmaker, and second-ranked SK Hynix count China as one of their key production bases especially for traditional memory chips, whose prices have been surging due to demand from AI data centers and tightened supplies.

(Reporting by Hyunjoo Jin; Additional reporting by Wen-Yee Lee and Heekyong Yang; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Saad Sayeed)