US President Trump and his administration could be looking to bring back a Biden-era rule regarding the export of AI chips to other countries. Supposedly, it’s planning on making a few tweaks to the rule and, in conjunction, do away with its current way of segregating recipient countries into three tiers.
According to sources close to Reuters, plans on how they could best use the AI chip restriction ruling but as of the publication of its report, it’s still in the works. It’s known as the Framework for Artificial Intelligence Diffusion, and was the last rule to be issued by the Biden administration, a week before the current Trump administration took over.
As a quick primer, the tiered system essentially divided countries into three tiers: Tier 1 nations (e.g., Japan, the UK) have unrestricted chip access, Tier 2 nations (e.g., Malaysia, Singapore) face limits, and Tier 3 nations (e.g., China, Russia) are entirely barred from accessing US chip technology.
Right now, the Trump administration is weighing on whether or not it should discard the tiered approach, and replace it with what is being called a global licensing regime with government-to-government agreements. “There are some voices pushing for elimination of the tiers,” Wilbur Ross, who served as Commerce secretary during the first Trump administration, said. “I think it’s still a work in progress.”
Ultimately, the goal of the current President’s administration is to simplify the current restrictions issue, particularly for some countries. Both Oracle and NVIDIA have been absolutely vocal about the rule, while unsurprisingly, some have spoken out against the rule, saying that eliminating the tier system would cause more harm than good.
(Source: Reuters)
