The Biden administration is proposing sweeping new restrictions on the export of AI chips

With a week left in office, President Joe Biden has introduced a new set of guidelines and restrictions for the export of US-made artificial intelligence chips.

The administration made the announcement on Monday Interim final rule On the dissemination of artificial intelligence. The ruling is intended to “provide clarity to allied and partner nations on how to leverage AI” and simplify licensing hurdles for chip orders, according to a White House press release. But these rules also impose new restrictions on the sale of chips in the majority of countries in the world.

These new guidelines divided countries into three groups, according to Preparing reports From CNN.

The first group includes the United States’ strongest allies, such as Japan and South Korea, who are not affected by the new restrictions. The second group includes countries such as China and Russia. These countries cannot already afford advanced AI chips and will now face further restrictions under new guidelines regarding most “closed” AI models. The third group, which includes most of the world’s countries, will now have caps on the number of chips they can purchase. The cap is set at 50,000 GPUs per country, but there are several ways a country can reach a higher quota.

This third group of countries that are neither the United States’ staunchest allies nor enemies, which includes places like Mexico, Portugal and Israel, among many others, are the most affected by the changes, CNN reported. The restrictions on this group of countries are intended to prevent adversaries like China and Russia from purchasing chips through them, but will also hurt AI adoption in these countries in the process.

Nvidia Issue a statement On Monday he called the proposed rules “unprecedented and misguided” and added that they would “hinder” innovation and economic growth around the world.

These proposals are intended to build on guidance issued by the Biden administration in October 2022 and October 2023. Today’s proposal also includes a 120-day comment period, but the rules will go into effect before that period expires, CNN reports.

While this news is creating a buzz in the AI ​​community, with a new administration taking office next week, the conversation around chip export restrictions could look very different by the end of the month.