New US Rule Aims to Block China's Access to AI Chips and Models by Restricting the World

The Biden administration announced a bold and controversial new export control scheme today, designed to prevent the advanced chips and artificial intelligence models themselves from ending up in the hands of adversaries such as China. The administration's new "AI Diffusion rule" divides the world into nations that are allowed relatively unfettered access to America's most advanced AI silicon and algorithms, and those that will require special licenses to access the technology. The rule, which will be enforced by the Commerce Department's Bureau of Industry and Security, also seeks to restrict the movement of the most powerful AI models for the first time. "The US leads the world in AI now, both AI development and AI chip design, and it's critical that we keep it that way," the US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said ahead of today's announcement. The list of trusted nations are the UK, Canada, Australia, Japan, France, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden and Taiwan.