Two US lawmakers, Representative Mike Gallagher and Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, who lead a committee focused on China, have urged the Biden administration to tighten export restrictions on artificial intelligence (AI) chips. This comes in response to industry lobbying efforts seeking to keep the rules unchanged.
Last October, the US implemented a set of export control rules that restricted China’s access to top AI chips produced by American companies like Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, and Intel. However, after the rules were enforced, Nvidia and Intel developed chips specifically for the Chinese market with reduced interconnect speeds. Despite the export controls, China’s AI sector has reportedly continued to progress.
Last month, Reuters reported that US officials were contemplating tightening the rules further, focusing solely on processing speeds, which could affect Nvidia’s chips. This potential tightening led to extensive lobbying, with the CEOs of Nvidia, Intel, and Qualcomm traveling to Washington to discuss China policy with administration officials.
In response to these developments, Representatives Gallagher and Krishnamoorthi have called for an even stricter approach than what was previously reported. They recommended maintaining a limit on the speed at which chips can communicate with each other and lowering it to prevent circumvention through engineering techniques.
Moreover, the lawmakers urged the administration to carefully consider how to cut off Chinese companies’ access to advanced computing chips in the cloud. Major US firms like Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet’s Google provide these chips for rent as part of their cloud computing services.
The lawmakers stressed the need to strengthen the existing export control rules to ensure that advanced US technology and expertise related to advanced computing and semiconductors are not used against the United States.
