A U.S. House panel is expected to vote today on a bill that would give Congress power over artificial intelligence chip exports. The legislation would give the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Banking Committee 30 days to review and potentially block licenses issued to export advanced AI chips to China and other adversaries.
Sarah Kreps, director of the Tech Policy Institute and the John L. Wetherill Professor in the Department of Government, focuses on the intersection of international politics, technology, and national security. She has spoken extensively on countering geopolitical rival China and the AI arms race.
Kreps says:
“What we’re seeing is a real institutional struggle over tech policy. The White House appears more willing to treat advanced chip exports as an economic bargaining chip, while members of Congress across party lines going back quite a few months are more focused on downstream security risks, especially military and intelligence applications in China.
“There’s also a genuine policy disagreement underneath this. One camp, reflected in the president’s position, argues that China will eventually catch up regardless, so the U.S. should leverage its lead by selling controlled access to advanced chips – both delaying China’s need to develop domestic substitutes and supporting a major U.S. firm such as Nvidia. The other camp, reflected in legislative moves like this one, argues that relaxing controls risks accelerating the military-relevant capabilities the export regime was meant to constrain, while also marginalizing Congress in high-stakes strategic decisions. The bill is an attempt to reclaim congressional agency over those choices.”
