Export Controls Key to US Keeping AI Lead, Senate Panel Hears
The U.S. should maintain and strengthen export restrictions on advanced chips and semiconductor manufacturing equipment to preserve its edge over China in AI, a panel of experts told lawmakers Dec. 2.
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Tarun Chhabra, distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution and head of national security policy at Anthropic, said the Trump administration’s recent decision to bar the sale of Nvidia’s most advanced chip, the Blackwell, to China was a “positive step forward” (see 2511030031). He would extend that prohibition to Nvidia’s “also powerful” H200, the fate of which the administration is considering (see 2511240029).
“Access to advanced AI chips and the equipment needed to manufacture them is the single most significant factor that could allow the [Chinese Communist Party] to close the gap with the United States in the AI race,” Chhabra testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, the Pacific and International Cybersecurity Policy. “If we surrender this chokepoint, we risk losing our quest for dominance in AI and, by extension, strategic national advantages in innovation, growth and national security.”
Under questioning by Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., the subcommittee’s ranking member, all four of the hearing’s witnesses agreed that exporting the Blackwell or H200 to China wouldn't be in the U.S. national interest.
Gregory Allen, senior adviser at the Wadhwani AI Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said chip export controls have proven their value by preventing China from obtaining the world’s largest data centers and best AI models. “That’s a future that we stopped and it’s one that we continue to have the ability to stop if we continue this policy and close the necessary loopholes,” Allen testified.
Sen. Pete Ricketts, R-Neb., the subcommittee’s chairman, said that he and Coons plan to introduce a bill, the Secure and Feasible Exports of Chips Act, or Safe Chips Act, to codify the Trump administration’s “current red lines on what AI chips” can be sold to China. All four hearing witnesses indicated they would support such legislation.
Chris Miller, professor at Tufts University’s Fletcher School and non-resident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, also advocated for “tightening up” existing controls on chip exports to China. “Once a chip crosses into China, we have no further control over it,” he testified.
James Mulvenon, chief intelligence officer at Pamir Consulting, said U.S. policymakers should keep in mind that China’s military-civil fusion policy encourages technology sharing between its defense and civilian sectors. “There is no such thing as a civilian validated end user that you can sell an AI chip [to] that therefore prevents it from being accessible to the Chinese military,” Mulvenon testified.
To limit China's ability to make its own chips, Chhabra said he would strengthen U.S. export controls on chipmaking equipment and ensure allies close “loopholes” in that area. He would withhold “more tools" from China, including deep ultraviolet lithography machines, and he would favor “not being shy” about invoking the foreign direct product rule to stop the sale of tools containing U.S.-origin technology.
Chhabra said the Biden administration took “important” steps to curb exports of chipmaking equipment to China but “did not go far enough or fast enough.” Miller agreed, saying there are still “real gaps,” especially when comparing U.S. controls to those of Japan and the Netherlands.
Chhabra would also restrict China’s remote access to frontier models and the computing power needed to train those models. Miller would “look into restrictions or limitations on Chinese firms’ ability to access data centers abroad.”