After a week or so of rumors, the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) formally rescinded the Biden administration’s Artificial Intelligence Diffusion Rule days before it was set to go into effect.
The Artificial Intelligence Diffusion Rule, which was introduced by former president Joe Biden in January and set to come into force on May 15, introduced limits on exporting U.S.-made AI chips to many countries for the first time while bolstering existing restrictions.
On Tuesday, the DOC announced that it instructed staff not to enforce the Biden-era regulation. The DOC plans to issue a replacement rule in the future, likely focusing on direct negotiations with countries as opposed to blanket restrictions, according to reporting from Bloomberg.
Biden’s proposed rule divided the world’s countries into three tiers, with each tier having its own level of restrictions. Tier 1 countries, like Japan and South Korea, would have continued to face no export restrictions; Tier 2 regions, which included countries like Mexico and Portugal, would have seen chip export limits for the first time; and Tier 3 countries, like China and Russia, would have had to contend with tightened controls.
In lieu of new regulations, the DOC on Tuesday released some guidance for the industry. It reminded companies that using Huawei’s Ascend AI chips anywhere in the world violates U.S. export rules, warned about the potential consequences of letting U.S. AI chips be used to train AI models in China, and recommended ways to protect chip supply chains from diversion tactics.
“The Trump Administration will pursue a bold, inclusive strategy to American AI technology with trusted foreign countries around the world, while keeping the technology out of the hands of our adversaries,” U.S. Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Jeffrey Kessler said in a statement. “At the same time, we reject the Biden Administration’s attempt to impose its own ill-conceived and counterproductive AI policies on the American people.”
