Asa Fitch and Liza Lin of The Wall Street Journal report that the U.S. is tightening controls on AI exports to limit China’s advancements, requiring licenses for sending AI model data and setting up large AI computing facilities abroad. The new rules target U.S. adversaries, with exemptions for key allies. They write:
The U.S. is imposing some of its strongest measures yet to limit Chinese advances in artificial intelligence, requiring companies to get government approval to export certain information about their AI models and set up large AI computing facilities overseas.
The rules, out Monday, are a final push by the Biden administration in a yearslong effort to use export controls to stem China’s advances in chip-making and AI, and they have sparked a backlash from companies including Nvidia. The rules impose caps on how many advanced AI chips can be exported to certain countries and require a license to export the data that underpins the most sophisticated AI systems.
Strict sales restrictions on these chips are already in place for China, Iran and other U.S. adversaries, and the new rules carve out exemptions for a group of 18 close U.S. allies and partners. These include countries such as the U.K., France and Germany, a senior administration official said. But a broad category of more than 120 other countries, including U.S. allies in the Middle East and Asia, are set to face new hurdles in setting up huge AI computing facilities. […]
Under the new rules, companies that produce AI models—the likes of OpenAI and Google—would need export licenses to send the “weights” attached to those models to many foreign countries. Model weights are the secret sauce in advanced AI systems like ChatGPT, a series of digital knobs that fine-tune their performance. […]
The limits suggest many countries could be challenged in setting up AI computing facilities capable of competing with the largest and most advanced in the U.S. and its closely allied countries. Some of the biggest AI computing facilities in the U.S. contain huge numbers of Nvidia’s AI chips, including the Colossus supercomputer being built by Elon Musk’s xAI in Memphis, Tenn., which is being scaled up to include 200,000 of them.
The biggest American tech companies could be affected too, both in their ability to sell AI systems and set up computing infrastructure around the world.
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