Tech stock still under pressure here, the NASDAQ composite falling more than 1.5% as the Trump administration reportedly considers tougher semiconductor restrictions to China.

But as with DeepSeek, we've seen those attempts to limit China's AI backfire.

For today's tech check, Deirdreboza, looking at what could be the unintended benefit, who could be the unintended

beneficiary, Deirdre, if the Trump administration does go through with this like Biden did.

Right.

So, Sarah, not only have those previous tariffs not worked, but they actually supercharged China's

AI efforts in some very unexpected ways.

The idea that we've all heard a ton over the last few weeks, necessity is the

mother of invention. As you said, the previous tariffs, they laid the groundwork for Deep Seek's

breakthrough. Additional restrictions could supercharge progress at another, much larger, definitely

state-backed Chinese company, Huawei, and it could supercharge them in chips, the very foundation

of the race.

Now, without access to NVIDIA's highest NGPs, deep seek built model on less performance

chips, H20s, which according to Reuters has led other Chinese companies to ramp up their

own orders for those cheaper chips.

Now as additional tariffs threaten to cut off access to them, Chinese AI companies may be forced

to turn to Huawei's alternative.

Now, again, they're not the best and they're not the preferred hardware, but they may be

good enough and getting better.

This morning, the FT reports that the company has significantly improved the yield or the

amount of advanced AI chips that it can produce a near doubling from

about a year ago.

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