silicon curtain

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English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From silicon (computing) and Iron Curtain.

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

silicon curtain (plural not attested)

  1. A legal barrier to technology transfer and sale of advanced computer equipment between China and the West.
    • [2019 March 6, Karishma Vaswani, “Huawei: The story of a controversial company”, in BBC News:
      What this would mean in reality is a world of two internets - or what analysts are calling a "digital iron curtain" - dividing the world into parts that do business with Chinese companies like Huawei, and those that don't.]
    • 2019 November 11, Carolynn Look, Jeff Black, “Peering Through the Silicon Curtain Between the U.S. and China”, in Bloomberg News:
      We hear also from Huawei’s founder and CEO, Ren Zhengfei, who explains that while the company doesn’t want to exist behind a “silicon curtain,” cut off from global suppliers, it is readying its own operating system to replace the one it used to buy from Google.
    • 2021 February, Eric Boehm, “A Silicon Curtain Descends”, in Reason, published 2020:
      Pence went on to say that America did not seek a technological decoupling from China. But other parts of that speech—and some of the actions taken by the Trump administration in the months since—conjure images of a silicon curtain descending across the world.