Export Controls Needed for Chinese LiDAR Tech Companies, Lawmakers Say

The Biden administration should investigate all Chinese lidar technology companies to determine whether they should be placed on the Entity List or made subject to U.S. investment restrictions, the House Select Committee on China said in a letter this week. The lawmakers said lidar, or light detection and ranging, is being used in autonomous systems and robotics but isn’t subject to export controls, potentially allowing a loophole for Chinese companies to acquire U.S. technologies for use in lidar systems that can aid the country’s military.

The letter, led by committee chairs Mike Gallagher, R-Wis., and Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., asks Commerce, Treasury and Defense Departments to look into whether any Chinese lidar companies should be added to Commerce’s Entity List, Treasury’s Non-Specially Designated Nationals Chinese Military-Industrial Complex Companies List, or DOD’s Chinese Military Companies List. They also asked whether the U.S. should place new export controls on specific lidar-related technologies for shipments destined to China.

They said lidar is a dual-use technology that can be used to create “high-definition maps around autonomous vehicles” and raises “serious national security concerns related to data security, cybersecurity, and exquisite mapping of U.S. infrastructure.” Most commercial lidar sensors need field programmable gate array (FPGA) semiconductor chips, and while BIS has in place license requirements for FPGAs with more than 700 digital input/outputs, the chips used in lidar systems have a lower input/output and “are not currently subject to export controls,” the lawmakers said.

U.S. companies Xilinx and Altera Corp. control most of the global FPGA market, they added, and so Chinese lidar companies rely on them to build their systems. It’s “concerning that there are currently U.S. components that are potentially being used in the [People’s Republic of China’s] military’s autonomous vehicle systems,” the letter said. “Increased scrutiny is required to ensure American LiDAR technologies are not advancing PRC weapons platforms or surveillance systems used to facilitate human rights abuses.”

A Pentagon spokesperson said Nov. 29 that DOD will "reply directly to Members of Congress regarding this matter." Spokespeople for Commerce and Treasury didn’t comment.