a new report UK-China Transparency The group claims that British company Imagination Technologies has provided key GPU IP technology to Chinese companies, which can be used in Chinese government, military and secret service applications.
In the report, UKCT accuses Imagination managers and investors Canyon Bridge (controlled by China Guoxin Holdings, a Chinese government agency) of facilitating the transfer of key technology assets to Chinese companies that now compete with Imagination and other GPU developers. The technology has reportedly been transferred to Moore thread For example, the company has ties to a company that supplies GPUs to the Chinese military, as well as Biren Technologies, which is partly owned by the Russian government.
Imagination Technologies develops graphics and neural processing IP and then licenses it to customers such as Apple. Like some other major IP licensors, it can sell an actual GPU or NPU blueprint (physical IP), explain how to use it, and maybe even help implement it into a chip design. It also sells architecture licenses, and its partners can design GPUs from the ground up – developing their own execution units (texture units, shader units, rendering backends, etc.), data pipelines, cache hierarchies and interconnects. Balance the entire GPU.
Here are two of the report’s four key findings, with further analysis below.
- Transfer core assets to Chinese companies: UKCT received testimony alleging that Imagination began transferring core assets to Chinese GPU companies in 2020 through undisclosed and unusual knowledge and technology transfer transactions. Of the three Chinese companies identified as receiving Imagination assets: one is Moore Threads, which has ties to a company that supplies GPU products to the Chinese military; The other is Biren Technology, which is partly owned by the Russian government. The two companies, known as China’s “leading artificial intelligence chip designers,” were both sanctioned by the U.S. government in October 2023.
- Chinese owners with close ties to the military: Imagination’s owner, China Guoxin, is focused on supporting China’s strategic industries, with strong links to China’s military and national security agencies and investments in related industries and companies, including a chip company that supplies a leading military company . The UKCT assesses that China’s reforms intentionally use imagination to pursue the interests of the Chinese Communist Party.
Licensing GPU technology to China
Typically, Imagination and other IP vendors never transfer key knowledge or explain design decisions to customers. However, UKCT’s sources – former Imagination employees – claim this is happening to Imagination’s Chinese customers, including Biren Technology (which has received investment from the Russian-Chinese Investment Fund), InnoSilicon and Moore Threads.
UKCT sources revealed that the building license sold to the Chinese company was made up of three distinct components:
- The first includes standard materials provided in Imagination’s normal license agreement, such as physical IP, support and documentation. These standard resources do not include detailed information about the rationale or methodology behind specific design decisions.
- The second involves a direct transfer of knowledge, with Imagination’s senior hardware and software architects sharing unique insights with Chinese customers. This situation is highly unusual and has only happened once before – once with Imagination’s largest customer, Apple.
- The third request was to create new documentation specifically for these Chinese customers, detailing the essential characteristics of Imagination’s design intellectual property (IP), including internal specifications, verification methods and design processes. This information is usually confidential (although it is sometimes shared to meet compliance requirements because it makes the customer a competitor).
Sources believe the company will shut down after Imagination’s technology is transferred to China’s three largest GPU developers. The company didn’t close, but its headcount dropped from 1,100 in 2016 to 804 in mid-2017 (after Apple announced plans to develop its own GPUs), and further to 520 in 2023.
ImgTec denies wrongdoing
Innosilicon Technology publicly stated that admit Develop GPU using Imagination’s IP, Biren Technology and Moore Threads claim their processors rely on proprietary architecture. However, it is widely believed that the founding teams of Biren and Moore Threads are from AMD and Nvidia and may have brought trade secrets with them. (This has not been confirmed, but neither claims about a proprietary architecture nor assumptions about third-party trade secrets rule out the possibility that the underlying instruction set architecture (ISA) or some design decisions originated from Imagination Technologies.)
imagination technologyThe UK-based construction company denies any wrongdoing and claims it works closely with Chinese clients in compliance with industry standards for building consents. The company also denies transferring proprietary technology to its licensing partners.
A statement from Imagination Technologies published by UKCT reads: “Architecture licensing transactions are completely normal in the semiconductor industry, including Imagination.” “When we ‘supply IP’, we provide a technology suite and license Imagination’s intellectual property rights in that technology. , enabling our customers to design, manufacture and sell wafers containing our technology. […] Specific technology delivery packages for standards and architecture licenses vary by customer and end use case [‚Ķ]. For both standards and architecture licensing businesses, training is necessary to help customers understand how to use Imagination Technology to design wafers and, where relevant, make their own customizations only for their permitted uses.
The company further argued that it did not make strategic sense to share all of Imagination Technologies’ experience and knowledge with customers to enable them to design their own GPUs. It also denied transferring its assets to third parties in China. Now Biren, InnoSilicon and Moore thread If these companies are added to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Entity List and Imagination can no longer supply them, the Chinese company may have to independently develop a new generation of GPUs – possibly using the familiar ISA.
China military relations?
When China-backed Canyon Bridge acquired Imagination Technologies in 2020, there was immediate controversy due to its ties to the Chinese government and the potential use of its technology to bolster China’s military capabilities and strategic industries. UKCT alleges that Canyon Bridge has links not only to the Chinese government through its owner China Guoxin, but also to the People’s Liberation Army, state-owned strategic enterprises and various Chinese companies that require artificial intelligence, graphics and high-performance computing for development and produced processors. These companies can work with Biren, InnoSilicon and Moore Threads directly or through intermediaries.
For example, one of the shareholders of Moore Threads is Shanshan Liu (who is also the company’s executive director). Shanshan also serves as a director of Beijing Runyu Information Technology Co., Ltd. According to UKCT, the GPU company has supplied products to China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation, a major arms manufacturer in which China has reformed its holdings.
UKCT plans to publish the second part of its investigation, which will focus on export control laws and provide further evidence from an employment dispute involving former Imagination chief executive Dr Ron Black. you can Read the full report here [PDF].