Do China’s export curbs on tungsten threaten Japan’s AI chip supply chain?

Two major Japanese chemical manufacturers could halt production of a gas crucial to AI chipmaking starting next month, as supply tightens and prices surge amid Beijing’s export controls on tungsten.The price of tungsten-hexafluoride" class="entity-link entity-topic" data-entity-id="145626" data-entity-type="topic">tungsten hexafluoride has jumped more than 200 per cent year on year because of supply bottlenecks, coupled with rising chip demand, market data showed. The gas is a critical precursor in the semiconductor industry, where it is used to develop the microscopic connections inside advanced AI chips built on 3- to 7-nanometre processing nodes.The latest available data on Tuesday showed the price of five-nines tungsten-hexafluoride" class="entity-link entity-topic" data-entity-id="145626" data-entity-type="topic">tungsten hexafluoride – meaning 99.999 per cent purity – stood at more than 1,700 yuan (US$251) per kg, triple that of a year earlier, according to ibuychem, a Guangzhou-based industry portal.