Cybersecurity Association of China warns of Intel chip risks

The Cybersecurity Association of China warned on Wednesday of the cybersecurity risks of Intel chips, which are used in millions computers, and urged a systematic security review for Intel products sold domestically.

The nation-level industry association claimed Intel had "constantly harmed" China's national security and interests, though profiting from the domestic market, according to a statement published on Wednesday.

Intel's products in China were identified as posing several risks, including frequent security vulnerabilities, poor reliability, disregard for user complaints, and unauthorized monitoring through so-called "remote management" features. The association warned that these issues jeopardize network and information security.

To safeguard China's national security and the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese consumers, the association recommended a comprehensive cybersecurity review of all Intel products sold in the country.

Intel was not immediately available for comment.

Though facing challenges such as losing market share and huge lay-offs, Intel is still the world's biggest computer chipmaker. Its CPU chip is often regarded as a computer's brain.

Intel has more than a 50-percent CPU market share in the domestic PC market, and even higher in the server market, industry insiders said.

But with the booming AI wave, new chip architecture optimized for AI is expected to challenge X-86 architecture, dominated by Intel and AMD now, said Gartner, a US-based research firm. Gartner suggests that AI PCs offer a more secure environment for data and privacy protection.

In 2025, AI PC sales will constitute 43 percent of sales in the PC market, compared with 17 percent this year, according to Gartner.

Also on Wednesday, Intel and AMD said they were joining forces to establish a new advisory group with the goal of enhancing and better unifying the x86 ecosystem.