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As the U.S. prepares to roll out rules that will affect global artificial intelligence development, foreign government officials and tech company leaders are asking the Trump administration to relax some rules around chips, according to Bloomberg.
The Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion, which was unveiled at the tail end of the Biden administration, aims to control which countries, including U.S. allies, can import advanced semiconductors needed for AI development. Known as the AI diffusion rule, the framework puts countries into three different tiers, and it outlines how many chips countries can import, where the chips can be deployed, and how nations can work together on AI.
With the May 15 deadline to be in compliance looming, foreign governments and tech companies are asking the Trump administration to rethink some restrictions out of worries that the rules could hamper AI development and investment, Bloomberg reported.
Poland, for example, is reportedly concerned that data center investments from Google (GOOGL+1.47%) and Microsoft (MSFT+0.37%) could be negatively affected by computing caps. Indian officials, meanwhile, met with former president Joe Biden’s national security council in January to discuss how it can access AI chips, people told Bloomberg.
Oracle (ORCL-0.95%) and Nvidia (NVDA-0.30%), which both conduct business in countries under tougher restrictions from the rule (such as those in Southeast Asia), have both asked the Trump administration to scrap the current rule and draft regulations, Bloomberg reported. In January, Nvidia pushed back at the proposed rules in a blog post.
“While cloaked in the guise of an ‘anti-China’ measure, these rules would do nothing to enhance U.S. security,” Ned Finkle, vice president of government affairs at Nvidia, said in a statement. “The new rules would control technology worldwide, including technology that is already widely available in mainstream gaming PCs and consumer hardware. Rather than mitigate any threat, the new Biden rules would only weaken America’s global competitiveness, undermining the innovation that has kept the U.S. ahead.”
At the moment, White House officials are debating how to implement the rule. Some officials have proposed getting rid of the tiered system and caps on computing power in favor of leaning more on export licenses for a majority of countries, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.