US senators have asked the intelligence community to examine the threat a potential deal between Apple and the Chinese chipmaker Yangtze Memory Technologies Co poses to national security, in an escalation of the political pressure being applied to the iPhone maker over the arrangement.
Mark Warner, the Democratic chair of the Senate intelligence committee, and the Republican vice-chair Marco Rubio wrote to director of national intelligence Avril Haines requesting a review just days after the Financial Times reported that Apple was considering buying memory chips from YMTC for the new iPhone 14.
“We write to convey our extreme concern about the possibility that Apple Inc will soon procure 3D NAND memory chips from Yangtze Memory Technologies Co,” the senators said. “Such a decision would introduce significant privacy and security vulnerabilities to the global digital supply chain that Apple helps shape given YMTC’s extensive, but often opaque, ties to the Chinese Communist party.”