A customized chip released by Alibaba in November 2021

BEIJING, December 14 (TMTPOST) -- Chinese tech giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has been prohibited from purchasing some cutting-edge chip designs from British chip technology firm Arm Ltd, the chip company told TMTPost on Wednesday.

The British company said it must abide by export controls in all regions in which the company is operating while providing customized solutions to Chinese clients, including Alibaba.

The British company determined that the U.S. and Britain would not approve licences to export technology to China, according to the Financial Times.

This is the first known time that Arm, owned by Japanese tech investor SoftBank, has decided it could not export its most advanced designs to China, the newspaper added.