Asia Tech Wire (Nov 8) -- TSMC said Friday afternoon it had "no comment" on online rumors that it would stop supplying 7nm chips to China.

"TSMC is law-abiding and strictly complies with all available laws and regulations, including applicable export control regulations," the company said in a statement.

Earlier in the day there were market rumors of a change in TSMC's 7nm supply to mainland China, with news to be announced as soon as next week.

Citing multiple sources, ijiwei reported that TSMC had sent an email to all of its AI/GPU company customers in mainland China, indicating that it would no longer supply chips with 7nm or more advanced processes to those customers starting next Monday.

However, a senior source in the semiconductor foundry field said, "I have not heard of the above rumors."

Other industry insiders believe that it is unlikely that TSMC will suspend shipments of related products at this time.

And according to a source inside TSMC, TSMC was forced to make the decision as a temporary strategy at the request of the U.S.

This person revealed that the U.S. seems to want to completely restrict Chinese companies to chips produced by TSMC's 7nm and more advanced processed, while TSMC wants to restrict only AI chip-related Chinese companies, without affecting other customers such as cell phone chips.

However, the two sides are still discussing the semiconductor restrictions.

The news comes as the U.S.-China tech rivalry continues, and as U.S.-blacklisted Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei's alleged acquisition of 7nm AI chips made by TSMC through a "white-glove" drew international attention in late October.