Cadence did not immediately respond to AP requests.
Tan previously launched the venture capital firm Walden International in 1987 to focus on funding tech start-ups, including chipmakers. China’s state media has described Tan as “actively” devoted to Chinese and Asian markets, having invested not only in the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company but also China’s state-owned enterprise SMIC, which seeks to advance China’s chipmaking capabilities.
The demands made by Trump and Cotton come as economic and political rivalries between the US and China increasingly focus on the competition over chips, AI and other digital technologies that experts say will shape future economies and military conflicts.
Cotton, the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has raised concerns that Chinese spies could be working at tech companies and defence contractors, using their positions to steal secrets or plant digital backdoors that give China access to classified systems and networks.
On Thursday the Arkansas Republican wrote to the Department of Defence urging Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to ban all non-US citizens from jobs allowing them to access DoD networks. He has also demanded an investigation into Chinese citizens working for defence contractors.
“The US government recognises that China’s cyber capabilities pose one of the most aggressive and dangerous threats to the United States, as evidenced by infiltration of our critical infrastructure, telecommunications networks, and supply chains,” Cotton wrote in an earlier letter calling on the Pentagon to conduct the investigation.
National security officials have linked China’s government to hacking campaigns targeting prominent Americans and critical US systems.
Intel slumped on Wall Street despite wider gains for tech stocks. Credit: Bloomberg
“US companies who receive government grants should be responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars and adhere to strict security regulations,” Cotton wrote on the social platform X.
Intel had been a beneficiary of the Biden administration’s CHIPS Act, receiving more than $US8 billion in federal funding to build computer chip plants around the country.
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Founded in 1968 at the start of the PC revolution, Intel missed the technological shift to mobile computing triggered by Apple’s 2007 release of the iPhone, and it’s lagged more nimble chipmakers. Intel’s troubles have been magnified since the advent of artificial intelligence — a booming field where the chips made by once-smaller rival Nvidia have become tech’s hottest commodity.
Intel is shedding thousands of workers and cutting expenses — including some domestic semiconductor manufacturing capabilities — as Tan tries to revive the fortunes of the struggling chipmaker.
AP
