TAIPEI, June 15 (Reuters) - Taiwan's government has

added China's Huawei Technologies and Semiconductor

Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) to its export

control list, which includes other proscribed organisations like

the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Inclusion on the economy ministry's trade administration's

strategic high-tech commodities entity list means Taiwanese

companies will need government approval before exporting any

products to the companies.

The companies were included in an updated version of the

ministry's trade administration's website late on Saturday.

Neither company nor the economy ministry immediately responded

to requests for comment outside of office hours at the weekend.

Taiwan is home to TSMC, the world's largest

contract chipmaker and a major supplier of chips to AI darling

Nvidia ( NVDA ). Both Huawei and SMIC have been working hard to

catch up in the chip technology race.

Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory despite the

strong objections of Taipei's government, already has tight chip

export controls when it comes to Taiwanese companies either

manufacturing in the country or supplying Chinese firms.

Huawei, which is at the centre of China's AI ambitions, is

on a U.S. Commerce Department trade list that essentially bars

it from receiving U.S. goods and technology, as well as

foreign-made goods such as chips from companies like TSMC made

with U.S. technology.

Last October, TechInsights, a Canadian tech research firm,

took apart Huawei's 910B AI processor and found a TSMC chip in

it. The multi-chip 910B is viewed as the most advanced AI

accelerator mass-produced by a Chinese company.

TSMC suspended shipments to China-based chip designer

Sophgo, whose chip matched the one in the Huawei 910B and, in

November the U.S. Commerce Department ordered TSMC to halt

shipments of more chips to Chinese customers.

Taiwan's government has also repeatedly vowed to crack down

on what it says are efforts by Chinese companies, including

SMIC, to steal technology and entice chip talent away from the

island.

SMIC is China's largest chipmaker and has ramped up

investment to expand production capacity and strengthen China's

domestic semiconductor capability in the face of sweeping U.S.

export controls.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)