White House Issues Strict Rules on AI Systems and Chip Exports

­The Biden Administration has just issued draconian restrictions on the export of advanced AI systems (and the chips to enable them) – restrictions that, by the time you read this, could be well on their way to being overturned.

The Interim Final Rule on Artificial Intelligence Diffusion aims to “enhance U.S. national security and economic strength.”

“It is essential that we do not offshore this critical technology and that the world’s AI runs on American rails,” according to the official announcement. “It is important to work with AI companies and foreign governments to put in place critical security and trust standards as they build out their AI ecosystems.”

As such, the rule issues restrictions on a sliding scale, ranging from zero limitations all the way up to complete bans.

For 18 key allies and partners – but more importantly, “robust technology protection regimes and technology ecosystems aligned with the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States” – have zero restrictions on imports.

Moving up slightly, non-key allies and partners that aren’t “countries of concern” – but still apply the same security standards – can apply for “National Verified End User” status, which allegedly enables them to purchase computational power of up to 320,000 advanced GPUs over the next two years.

The restrictions gradually tighten, before landing at “countries of concern” (like China and Russia), completing forbidding American companies from selling advanced AI systems and certain semiconductors to them.

Naturally, all these restrictions could have a profound impact on American semiconductor companies, the more globalist, the worse the blow.

One of those companies, Nvidia – which allegedly has about a 90% share of AI chips – was particularly miffed, claiming that “This sweeping overreach would impose bureaucratic control over how America’s leading semiconductors, computers, systems, and even software are designed and marketed globally.”

Nvidia has cozied up to the incoming President Trump, though given the latter’s aggressive policies towards China, he might not immediately undo the Final Rule on Artificial Intelligence Diffusion, if at all.