Chinese chip designer Xiamen Sophgo — a firm with links to Bitmain — denied any business relationship with Huawei, after Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) cut dealings with it amid a United States probe into potential sanctions violations.

According to an Oct. 27 report from Reuters citing two people familiar with the matter, Sophgo had ordered chips from TMSC that matched those found on Huawei’s Ascend 910B.

The US Department of Commerce launched an investigation into whether TSMC knowingly supplied chips to Huawei, which has been subject to US sanctions since 2020 due to national security concerns, according to an Oct. 17 report from The Information.

Still, Sophgo denied having any business relationship with Huawei in a statement on its website.

Sophgo said the US probe into TSMC and Huawei was unrelated to Sophgo and its products and that it had never engaged directly or indirectly with Huawei. “Sophgo has been conducting business in strict compliance with applicable laws and regulations,” it said.

The US Commerce Department and TSMC reportedly found that “chips TSMC made for Xiamen Sophgo had designs similar to those of Huawei’s artificial intelligence chips,” according to The Information — also citing two people familiar with the matter.

Related: US tech exec warns China is ‘a decade ahead’ on quantum

Sophgo was founded in 2019 by Bitmain co-founder Micree Zhan. Bitmain and Sophgo reportedly share several domain registries and email directories.

Bitmain began looking into AI chip development in 2018 at the direction of Zhan, in a bid to bolster its chip offerings outside of crypto.

This shift in strategy created tension between Zhan and fellow co-founder Jihan Wu, who said the company should remain focused entirely on producing Bitcoin mining rigs.

Ultimately this difference — along with other issues — caused Zhan to be removed from the company in October 2019. Zhan’s sudden ousting came as he was introducing Bitmain’s “third generation” AI Chip — the Sophgo BM1684 — at a tech conference in China.

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