US Still 'Debating' Advanced Chip Export Controls, Lutnick Says
The Trump administration is still wrestling with how exactly to scope its replacement for the Biden-era AI diffusion rule, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said.
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Asked last week, during a Washington event on AI, how he views the future of advanced chip export controls, Lutnick said the administration is “comfortable” allowing close allies to buy those chips.
“The intellectual wrestle we're going through now is the idea that we are comfortable with allies buying significant numbers of chips, right?” Lutnick said. “And having a large cluster, provided that cluster is operated by an American -- a trusted, American operator -- and the cloud is a trusted American operator, so that we know that giant cluster is surrounded by us.” He said more questions surround "smaller" chip clusters, which are geographically close areas with multiple commercial fabs.
Lutnick stressed that the administration hasn’t finalized a path forward almost three months after the Bureau of Industry and Security first announced its plans to rescind the AI diffusion rule (see 2505070039 and 2505130018). He encouraged “anybody who has ideas along those lines” to speak to the government.
“This is really the thinking right now, and we're sort of debating that right now,” he said.