A bipartisan group of House lawmakers introduced a bill Thursday aimed at preventing the smuggling of artificial intelligence (AI) chips to unauthorized locations.
The bill comes amid a broader effort in Washington to curb competition with China and prevent U.S.-made tech from ending up in the hands of adversaries.
The legislation, titled the Chips Security Act, would require companies to ensure the location-verification abilities of their high-end AI chips and to report when a product has been diverted or changed location. It follows recent reports of increased smuggling of chips, including those made by Nvidia, into China despite tight export controls.
It also would mandate that the Commerce secretary evaluate security measures to prevent the misuse or diversion of chips and give the secretary enforcement capabilities.
The bill was introduced by Reps. Bill Foster (D-Ill.) and Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.), House Select Committee on China Chair John Moolenaar (R-Mich.) and ranking member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.)
“As Congress’s chip designer, AI programmer, and Ph.D. physicist, I know that we have the technical tools to prevent powerful AI technology from getting into the wrong hands,” Foster said Thursday.
It comes nearly a week after Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) unveiled similar legislation in the upper chamber.
Earlier this week, the Commerce Department officially rescinded the Biden administration’s AI diffusion rule that would have placed caps on chip sales to most countries around the world.
The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) said the Biden-era rule, which was supposed to go into effect Thursday, would “have stifled American innovation and saddled companies with burdensome new regulatory requirements.”
The BIS said it plans to issue a replacement rule in the future.
Several technology companies including Microsoft and Nvidia urged President Trump to loosen the rule once he was back in office.
Concerns over China’s AI development ramped up earlier this year after the Chinese AI company DeepSeek released a high-performing model for a fraction of the cost of American-made models.
