China can’t run Windows 11 because foreign TPM chips are banned

What is Microsoft’s plan for a nationwide ban?

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What you need to know

Microsoft is a company with a global reach, and it depends on that reach to maintain its business. As such, it’s unlikely that the tech giant didn’t know about China’s TPM restrictions. The question then becomes, why have said restrictions not been fully addressed and accounted for on day one?

While the answer to that remains unknown, whatisknown is that China is not having an easy go with upgrading toWindows 11, primarily because foreignTPM chipsare banned in the country and those chips are part of the requirements for Microsoft’s latest OS.

According to William Li, a semiconductor analyst at Counterpoint Research, Microsoft is tactically skirting TPM requirement rules in certain cases (read: Chinese and Russian exceptions) (viaSouth China Morning Post). But those exceptions are happening at a higher level than the average consumer, at least right now. Many Chinese consumers are stuck at a crossroads because their hardware doesn’t have the green light for Windows 11 and they have no way to get the necessary TPM tech.

The country’s policy on TPM goes all the way back to 1999 as part of the long-runningchipmaking war between the U.S. and China. China has opted for its own TPM equivalent rather than foreign variants (like the kind Microsoft is mandating for Windows 11). It goes with TCM, which stands for Trusted Cryptography Module.

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Robert Carnevale is the News Editor for Windows Central. He’s a big fan of Kinect (it lives on in his heart), Sonic the Hedgehog, and the legendary intersection of those two titans, Sonic Free Riders. He is the author ofCold War 2395. Have a useful tip? Send it to robert.carnevale@futurenet.com.