Tectonic shift? 7nm chips are older models, they are not new.
Yes and no. There were plenty of commentators claiming that US sanctions were a death blow to the Chinese chip industry, who would not be able to go below 10 nm themselves, etc. This was one of the selling points for the sanctions.
You can find plenty of commentators saying anything in the modern world. That is not evidence of credibility, unless you’re in a church or something.
I would challenge anyone to said that to explain how exactly stopping trade would prevent Chinese companies from improving their chips. Is it assumed they are incapable of improvement?
I agree, but the US government thinks otherwise, and apparently the Commerce Department is now opening an investigation into how the Chinese could possibly have made a 7 nm chip. Though it’s not clear what else they can do; they’ve already completely blacklisted Huawei by this point, yet somehow it still lives.