Commerce’s Lutnick Says China Can’t Make Many Advanced Chips

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said China isn’t capable of producing high volumes of sophisticated semiconductors, a sign American export controls are limiting China’s technological progress.

Lutnick estimated that China could probably produce about 200,000 advanced chips, like the kind used to train artificial-intelligence services or run smartphones, a tiny number compared with the country’s demand. China’s ability to produce high-end chips has been a matter of fierce debate in recent years, especially after Huawei Technologies Co. unveiled a smartphone powered by a 7-nanometer processor in 2023.

“They say they are making them and they are not,” said the Commerce ...