Technology Miraj Islam October 24, 2026 0 Comments

The FCC has begun banning devices with “foreign surveillance chips” inside, but is granting Intel an exemption for its foreign-made industrial robots.

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FCC now bans devices with foreign chips
Two unnamed devices have been included in the official covered list
However, Intel has been granted an exemption for factory robots.

There’s new movement in both directions on the Covered List maintained by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the US: the list of banned technology products that the agency has determined to be a threat to national security, including DJI hardware.

New rules that went into effect this month allow the FCC to ban not only devices from specific companies, but also devices with components from specific companies inside them. As The Verge reports, those rules are now being put into practice.

Two unnamed devices have been added to the covered list because they have a HiVision chip inside; HiVision is a subsidiary of Huawei, which is already listed. These chips are typically used in home security cameras and dash cameras.

Factory Robot Workers

Intel can continue using its robots (Image credit: Intel)

However, one company managed to obtain a waiver from the FCC to prevent the equipment it relies on from being added to the Covered List: Reuters reports that Intel has been granted an exception for the robots it uses in its semiconductor factories.

The “foreign-made advanced robotics” involved cannot be obtained domestically, Intel argued. With this in mind, the FCC has kept them off the Covered List to avoid “potential disruptions to the availability of domestic semiconductor manufacturing services.”

As things stand, however, the exemption only lasts one year: Intel will then have to find some factory robots without foreign components inside them, or petition the FCC again to avoid having its army of freelancers banned.

The ‘automatically guided vehicles’ in question have been in use for two decades, Intel claims. The exemption does not apply to new models, but to software, firmware and hardware adjustments to existing models already in operation.