The U.S. FCC is drafting a ban on Chinese-sourced optical transceivers for data center components, aiming to restrict supply chains for critical interconnect.

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is working on a ruling that will ban the import of Chinese-made optical transceivers, which are widely used in data centers to convert electrical impulse data into light and vice versa. Sources told Reuters that the agency wants to publish the ruling before the end of the year.

"Transceivers definitely pose a risk," AI policy expert Divyansh Kaushik of advisory firm Beacon Global Strategies told the publication. "As data center buildout scales up, you want to make sure the data center supply chain is secure from the get-go." The administration fears that these components could be used to steal data, install malware, or disrupt data center operations in the U.S.

These optical transceivers are crucial for data centers because they require less electrical energy than traditional copper-based wiring and are significantly faster. Several U.S.-based manufacturers produce these components, including Lumentum, Coherent, and Apple Optoelectronics, but according to Reuters, they lack the scale and capacity of the leading company Innolight, which commands 27% of the global market.

This is not the first industry-wide ban the FCC has imposed in recent months. While the U.S. has banned Huawei products since 2019, it recently enforced several additional bans primarily affecting major Chinese or China-connected companies. These include a ban on foreign-made drones applied in December 2025, foreign-manufactured routers enacted in April, and advanced robotic devices weighing over 4.4 pounds with a 200-kbps connection, announced last month.

The drone ban primarily affected DJI, while the router ban hit TP-Link hard, despite the company's separation from its Chinese parent in 2024. The robot ban also extends to robot vacuums, with top U.S. brands including iRobot, Roborock, Ecovacs, Dreame, and Xiaomi all owned by Chinese entities.

Although the U.S. applies these bans broadly, it does allow conditional approvals. Netgear and Amazon, for example, secured exemptions for their foreign-made models through October 2027. TP-Link applied for additional approval in April but has yet to receive one.

The FCC reportedly aims to prevent Chinese components from becoming entrenched in U.S. AI data centers before proliferation occurs. This mirrors what happened with Huawei, which became so deeply integrated into American infrastructure by the time of the ban that removing and replacing all its components proved expensive and time-consuming.

The Chinese embassy in Washington told Reuters it is urging the United States to "heed the objective and rational voices of the business communities in both countries" and "stop smearing Chinese companies and threatening them with sanctions." It also warned that it will take "necessary measures in response to any action that causes material harm to its interests." Beijing demonstrated this resolve previously when it banned rare-earth exports to the U.S. following Washington's EDA software restrictions, prompting the White House to reverse its decision.