US House panel advances bill to give Congress authority on AI chip exports

Despite criticism from White House AI tsar David Sacks and a social media campaign against the legislation, the United States House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee overwhelmingly voted to advance a bill that would give Congress more authority over artificial intelligence chip exports.

After US President Donald Trump approved shipments of Nvidia’s potent H200 AI chips to China, Republican Representative Brian Mast of Florida, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced the “AI Overwatch Act.”

The legislation would allow the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Banking Committee to review and potentially halt permits issued to export advanced AI chips to China and other adversaries after passing the full house and Senate.

According to the bill, those “countries of concern” also include nations besides China, such as Venezuela, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, and Iran.

Additionally, the US Department of Commerce is required to provide lawmakers with a detailed, thorough application that demonstrates that adversarial countries’ use of the chips will not be used for military, intelligence, or surveillance operations in the US.

According to one source, a coordinated media campaign last week increased the bill’s chances of passing.

At a session on Wednesday before the committee vote, Mast stated that “these advanced chips must fall under the same oversight as any other military-related system.” The future of military conflict is the subject, according to the author.

The act will “slow China’s progress in developing AI that could rival US capabilities,” according to the tech advocacy group Americans for Responsible Innovation, which has been pushing for it for a fact sheet.

When Mast first introduced the bill late last year, Mast stated in a release that “America must win the AI arms race.”

White House retaliation

Sacks and the White House’s press office declined to respond to requests for comment.

Sacks claimed in a post from an X account called “Wall Street Mav” that the bill was being orchestrated by “Never Trumpers” and former Joe Biden staffers, undermining Trump’s authority and his America First strategy.

Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, claimed he had hired former Biden employees to raise the issue.

Sacks called it “Correct.”

The claims and the bill were not addressed by an Anthropic spokesperson. However, Amodei has been open about preventing China from receiving cutting-edge chips like the H200.

Amodei said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, that shipping these chips would be a big mistake. “I believe this is crazy,” she said. It’s similar to giving North Korea nuclear weapons.

Last week, conservative activist Laura Loomer, among others, wrote on X criticizing the bill, calling it “pro-China sabotage disguised as oversight.”

Mast and other committee members voted against the online threats before the vote.

Representative Michael McCaul, a Republican congressman from Texas, claimed that there are special interest groups that are currently raising millions of dollars with the very people who will profit from the sale of these chips and other companies that are “waging a social media campaign war” against this bill. Shame on them, I say.