Congress Wants To Curb Exporting AI Chips to China. Will It Make An Impact?

Congress wants to curb artificial intelligence (AI) chip exports to China as the U.S. ramps up domestic chip production?

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has had some success in convincing lawmakers to strip back regulations that prevent the company from selling advanced AI chips across the world, especially China, according to Politico. The Senate is poised to pass a must-pass defense bill that would further scrutinize chip exports to foreign adversaries such as China.

However, the restrictions could ring hollow as China could soon become self-sufficient by boosting its domestic AI industry and training its models on hardware made in the communist nation.

The AI chip company said in a recent earnings call that less than one percent of its data center revenue came from high-end chip sales to China, according to Yahoo Finance.

Nvidia and other hardware manufacturers are pressing lawmakers to remove language from this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a must-pass defense bill, that would limit Chinese access to Nvidia’s most advanced AI chips, per Politico. The Senate version of the NDAA contains provisions that would require tracking of exported AI chips and allow Congress to block exports of advanced AI chips to foreign adversaries such as China.

“What Jensen argues is that the threat of China is greater if they have to develop their own chips, and that’s not a frivolous argument,” Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, told Politico.

“He argues we want to see American chips adopted globally. There are two sides to that argument, and I think I and other policymakers are evaluating both sides. I think we need to have meaningful export controls, but where the line should be is a complicated judgment call,” he added.

An Nvidia spokesperson declined to respond to a Daily Caller News Foundation request for comment.

Huang has argued that export controls on AI chips may create a need for countries such as China to increase their own chip production.