Executives from top US tech companies including Microsoft, AMD, OpenAI, and others criticized the Biden administration’s export rules for AI chip and said that the AI race with China depends on making it easier to use American technology, not harder.
The comments made by the US Senate officials come as the Trump Administration is considering sweeping changes to the export controls of the Biden era, which were intended to cap sales to AI accelerators in most countries outside of the US and select few allies. Brad Smith, Microsoft’s President, said “The number one factor that will define whether the United States or China wins this race is whose technology is most broadly adopted in the rest of the world,” in a senate hearing on Thursday. He argued that AI diffusion rules proposed by the previous administration tell the rest of world that they cannot rely on the US for the right goods to meet their AI needs.
“How can you make a bet on suppliers if you’re not confident that they’ll be able to fulfill your needs?”
AMD’s Lisa Su echoed Smith, warning that the US government could inadvertently push other nations to Chinese suppliers if American companies were not allowed to meet their AI needs.
The US produces the world’s most advanced AI accelerators, but China is catching-up despite certain disadvantages. She added that you don’t need the best chips in order to be a competitor in the AI arena. She said
“Having the best chips is great, but even if you don’t have the best chips, you can get a lot done,” .
Su and Smith both agree that, while export controls are necessary from a national-security perspective to prevent American power technologies from falling into the hands of the wrong people, they would benefit from a softer touch. Su said.
Smith suggested Uncle Sam scrap the compute limitations proposed for so-called Tier-2 nations. These nations include all countries not already subjected to US arms embargoes, and go beyond the 18 countries listed on Uncle Sam’s “best-friends” list. He said. Smith and Su have not been the first to sing this song. Nvidia executives and Cerebras executives have both made arguments similar to this. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang made the following statement during a recent press conference. “The policies and encouragement from the administration really need to support that.”
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OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said he would also be “glad” pleased to see the rules rescinded. He said
“I agree there will need to be some constraints,” . He said “But I think if our mental model is winning diffusion instead of stopping diffusion, that directionally seems right,” . Altman, during the three-hour-long discussion, downplayed the danger of Chinese models such as DeepSeek R1 while stressing the importance of fighting models like these by competition. He said. The Trump administration is also signaling that a change is indeed coming. A Commerce Department spokesperson told Reuters that
“The Biden AI rule is overly complex, overly bureaucratic, and would stymie American innovation,” this week. “We will be replacing it with a much simpler rule that unleashes American innovation and ensures American AI dominance.”
It’s difficult to predict what the rules will look like, given that the Trump administration has been unpredictable so far in regards to foreign trade regulations. Some analysts speculate the president could use AI accelerators to bargain with other countries if tariffs are ineffective.
Biden’s rules are set to go into effect on May 15, so we will find out before that date. (r)
