Key Points
- A new bill would give Congress the power to block the export of AI chips to China.
- The “AI Overwatch Act” is a response to President Trump’s decision to allow sales of Nvidia’s H200 chips.
- The bill has faced pushback from the White House, which sees it as an attempt to undermine the president’s authority.
- The CEO of Anthropic has compared the chip sales to “selling nuclear weapons to North Korea.”
A key Republican lawmaker is moving forward with a bill that would give Congress the power to block the export of advanced artificial intelligence chips to China. The move is a direct challenge to President Trump’s recent decision to allow sales of Nvidia’s powerful H200 chips to the country.
Representative Brian Mast, the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, scheduled a committee vote on the “AI Overwatch Act” for Wednesday. The bill, if enacted, would give Congress a 30-day window to review and potentially veto licenses for exporting high-end AI chips to China and other U.S. adversaries.
“The Chinese military cannot use our cutting-edge AI chips,” Mast said at a recent hearing.
The bill has faced pushback from the White House, with AI czar David Sacks reposting social media claims that the legislation is a “pro-China sabotage” campaign orchestrated by “Never Trumpers” to undermine the president’s authority.
Mast rejected that criticism, saying, “You can advise him to sell H200 chips to China if you want, but I advise the opposite.”
The CEO of the AI firm Anthropic, Dario Amodei, has also been a vocal critic of the chip sales, comparing them to “selling nuclear weapons to North Korea.”
The bill’s odds of passage are uncertain. If it makes it out of committee, it will still need to pass in both the full House and Senate and be signed by the president. But the push for greater congressional oversight shows that there is deep, bipartisan concern in Washington about the national security implications of sharing advanced AI technology with China.
