U.S. Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI), chairman of the Select Committee on China, is supporting a bipartisan bill to seal off a loophole in U.S. export controls for artificial intelligence (AI) chips that he says is being exploited by China.
Along with U.S. Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), the lawmakers aim to stop the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from accessing advanced AI chips through cloud platforms by giving needed tools to providers to flag suspicious behavior and report misuse by America’s adversaries, according to the committee.
“In the AI race, China will buy what it can and steal the rest, which is why it is actively trying to get backdoor access to U.S. data centers and train its AI models via cloud computing,” Rep. Moolenaar said on June 26.
“U.S. cloud platforms have a role to play in stopping China’s AI buildup, which fuels its military and surveillance ambitions,” added the congressman. “This bipartisan common-sense legislation will require them to protect their products and American national security by simply verifying the identity of their users.”
U.S. export controls already prohibit U.S. adversaries from buying advanced AI chips, but the restrictions don’t prevent adversaries from using the cloud to access them.
Cloud computing permits customers to rent chips through providers like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, or Google Cloud. By renting advanced AI chips, as opposed to purchasing them outright, the CCP can access powerful, state-of-the-art semiconductor technology to train its AI models, the committee said in a statement.
The bill, which is currently untitled and has not yet received a number in the Congressional Record, would require know-your-customer rules for United States cloud computing companies to determine whether specified foreign entities are accessing United States data centers to train AI models, according to the bill’s text.
“We can’t let our adversaries — especially China — dodge our export controls by simply renting what they can’t buy,” said Rep. Gottheimer. “This bill gives American companies the legal clarity they need to do the right thing and report when bad actors are trying to use our own cloud infrastructure to threaten our national security.”