TECH NEWS – The AI diffusion law in the US is being revised to Trump’s liking, and it will bring some changes.
The US Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) has issued new guidance on the “revised” AI diffusion rule, which focuses on China’s artificial intelligence capabilities. There is no doubt that China has massively improved its AI capabilities as a result of US export controls. The achievements of DeepSeek and Huawei‘s hardware advances are prime examples. While the U.S. has been successful in restricting the flow of high-tech chips into the country, China has had a much greater capability as a result, and to counter this, the AI diffusion rule is likely to come after the nation’s AI assets. Based on the press release issued by the BIS, it appears that the focus will be on thwarting the influence of Chinese AI chips and models.
“The Trump Administration will pursue a bold, comprehensive strategy for American AI technology with trusted foreign countries around the world, while keeping the technology out of the hands of our adversaries. At the same time, we reject the Biden Administration’s attempt to impose its own ill-conceived and counterproductive AI policies on the American people,” said Jeffery Kessler, U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry.
The revised rule will focus on three targets, the first of which is the restriction of Huawei‘s Ascend chips. This is probably the first time that AI chips have been mentioned in official documents, and it shows how far Huawei has come with this product line. It turns out that using Ascend accelerators anywhere in the world is a violation of U.S. export controls, which shows that the Trump administration doesn’t want these chips to go anywhere outside of China, limiting their reach.
Second, the use of U.S. AI chips, mainly from Nvidia, to train Chinese AI models will now be subject to much more scrutiny. This could be achieved by building “tracking capabilities” into Nvidia chips to see where they are going. This is already possible, as the bill to do this is already in the U.S. Senate, so it won’t be long before AI chips have location tracking or even a kill switch function.
The revised AI diffusion rule will certainly not be as strict as in the Biden era. The main focus seems to be on preventing Huawei’s expansion into offshore markets, which could prove to be a major threat to Nvidia…
Leave a Reply