US senators unveil bill to keep Trump from allowing AI chip sales to China

A bill that would enact a bipartisan group of US senators, including renowned Republican hawk Tom Cotton, would impose a 2.5-year suspension on Beijing’s access to artificial intelligence chips.

The SAFE CHIPS Act was filed by Democrat Chris Coons and Republican Senator Pete Ricketts on Thursday.

Buyers in China, Russia, Iran, or North Korea would be required to submit requests for US AI chips that are more advanced than the ones they are currently able to obtain for 30 months to the Commerce Department, which oversees export controls. The Department of Commerce would then be required to provide Congress with updates on any proposed rule changes before they become effective.

According to Ricketts, “[Beijing has access to]the best US] AI chips is essential to our national security.”

The legislation, which was co-sponsored by Democrats Jeanne Shaheen and Andy Kim, was a rare effort to stop Trump from lifting China’s tech export restrictions further.

Trump’s Commerce Department imposed and then reinstated restrictions on Nvidia’s H20 AI chips in response to new Chinese export restrictions on rare earth metals, a move that Republican Representative John Moolenaar, who chairs the House Select Committee on China, criticized.

Trump pushed back a year to a rule that would have temporarily restricted US tech exports to Chinese companies, and he has pledged to nix a Biden-era rule that would have restricted exports of AI chips to countries in part due to concerns about chip smuggling to China.