US senators unveil bill to prevent easing of curbs on Nvidia chip sales to China

US senators unveil bill to prevent easing of curbs on Nvidia chip sales to China

By reuters.com
Publication Date: 2025-12-04 00:00:00

WASHINGTON, Dec 4 (Reuters) – A bipartisan group of U.S. senators, including prominent Republican China hawk Tom Cotton, on Thursday unveiled a bill that would block the Trump administration from loosening rules that restrict Beijing’s access to artificial intelligence chips from Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab and AMD for 2.5 years.

The bill, known as the SAFE CHIPS Act, was filed by Republican Senator Pete Ricketts and Democrat Chris Coons. It would require the Commerce Department, which oversees export controls, to deny any license requests for buyers in China, Russia, Iran or North Korea to receive U.S. AI chips more advanced than the ones they currently are allowed to obtain for 30 months. After that, Commerce would have to brief Congress on any proposed rule changes a month before they take effect.

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The legislation, which was co-sponsored by Republican Dave McCormick and Democrats Jeanne Shaheen and Andy Kim, represents a rare effort led in part by Trump’s own party to stop him from further relaxing tech export restrictions on China.

“Denying Beijing access to (the best American) AI chips is essential to our national security,” Ricketts said in a statement.

The bill comes as the Trump administration mulls greenlighting sales of Nvidia’s H200 artificial intelligence chips to China, Reuters reported. China hawks in Washington fear that Beijing could use the prized chips to supercharge its military with AI-powered weapons and more powerful intelligence and…