The United States has imposed broad export controls on chips used in artificial intelligence, aimed at making it difficult for China and other adversaries to access advanced technologies for military use.
President Joe Biden’s administration on Monday announced an export control regime that would give 20 close allies and partners unrestricted access to AI-related chips while imposing licensing requirements on most other countries. The move immediately faced pushback from the U.S. semiconductor industry.
The policy aims to make it harder for China to use other countries to circumvent existing U.S. regulations and obtain technology that can be used for everything from modeling nuclear weapons to hypersonic missiles.
“This rule provides greater clarity for our international partners and industry, as well as for concerned countries and those seeking to take advantage of advanced American technology,” said Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser. “This is to counter the significant circumvention techniques and associated national security risks posed by malicious actors.” us. “
The scheme creates a three-tier licensing system for chips used to power data centers that process AI computations. No restrictions will be imposed on the upper tier, which includes countries such as Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan, the Netherlands and Ireland, as well as G7 members.
The third tier includes countries such as China, Iran, Russia, and North Korea, which the US group cannot effectively export to. More than 100 mid-sized countries will be subject to caps and permits on the amount they can export in excess of their limits.
A person familiar with the plans said sales of Nvidia’s H20 series of chips for China — a weakened version of the company’s most advanced chips modified to meet U.S. export restrictions for Chinese customers — will begin in 2020. He said that he would not be affected by any regulations.
Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the policy ensures new regulations do not “stifle innovation and U.S. technological leadership.” However, this sparked a fierce backlash from the US semiconductor industry, and the EU also condemned the new rules.
In a joint statement, European Commission Vice-President Henna Virkunen and Commissioner Maroš Šefčović said: “The US measures adopted today will limit the export of advanced AI chips to some EU member states and their companies. “We are concerned that access is being restricted.”
The two leaders added that the EU represents “an economic opportunity, not a security risk, for the United States” and would engage “constructively” with the next US administration.
“We are extremely disappointed that a policy change of this magnitude and impact was rushed through just days before the presidential transition and without any meaningful input from the industry,” said John Neufer, president of the Semiconductor Industry Association. “I think so,” he said.
“The new rules risk causing unintended and lasting damage to the U.S. economy and the global competitiveness of semiconductors and AI by ceding strategic markets to competitors,” Neufer added.
Industry officials who spoke on condition of anonymity criticized the move, saying the U.S. government is trying to micromanage the global chip supply chain to the detriment of its allies and its own companies, including Nvidia, AMD, Dell and Supermicro. He called it an unprecedented measure that shows that
Nvidia said in a blog post: “While these rules hide the name of ‘anti-China’ measures, they do nothing to strengthen U.S. security. You will manage technologies from around the world, including technologies already widely used in Ware.
“Biden’s new rules will only weaken America’s global competitiveness and undermine the innovation that has kept America ahead.”
But Jimmy Goodrich, a senior adviser at the Rand Corp., said the rule was an “important framework” that would strengthen national security and would not give Chinese AI companies a competitive advantage over U.S. groups. He said no.
“The unchecked offshoring of large-scale AI data centers to countries with questionable ties to foreign adversaries poses clear national and economic security risks,” Goodrich said. “This framework has allowed millions of chips to remain in circulation around the world, and concerns about Chinese competition in AI chips are currently overblown.”
Industry insiders questioned whether the U.S. had the capacity to oversee such a wide range of company-specific programs and expressed hope that President Donald Trump’s administration would roll back the regulations.
One U.S. official declined to comment on what the next president would do, but stressed that “time is really of the essence.”
“We’re at a critical point right now, especially in our relationship with China. If you think about where our model is now compared to the model of the People’s Republic of China, we’re at a point where we’re at a point where we’re going from six months to The forecast is 18 months out, so every minute counts,” the official said.
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A source familiar with the new administration said the new administration is “nothing if it doesn’t put America first,” referring to a slogan frequently used by President Trump. “The question is whether the new government will be able to maintain this or will it fall victim to its oil dictatorship-first policy.”
Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas and incoming chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, said last week that the rule would “destroy America’s semiconductor leadership.” He said he was prepared to invoke the Congressional Review Act, which can be used to overturn actions by federal agencies.
Cruz said they were “secretly drafted without input from Congress or corporate America.” But Raimondo said the administration “has painstakingly consulted with experts in industry, civil society, and on Capitol Hill.”
