East Michigan News

Following a significant hearing on artificial intelligence (AI) competition with the Chinese Communist Party, Chairman Moolenaar (R-Mich.) has addressed the Department of Commerce with a new framework to boost American AI development and counter China's influence in the global AI landscape.

Chairman Moolenaar introduced his America First AI Policy at the Special Competitive Studies Project AI + Expo earlier this month. He expressed concerns about China's potential to share advanced AI capabilities, drawing parallels to historical threats like al-Qaeda’s anthrax lab or the Khan proliferation network. "But access to sufficiently capable AI systems may soon eliminate the need for highly trained experts," he noted, warning that non-state actors could use AI to create bioweapons targeting Americans.

The proposed framework consists of eight parts aimed at maintaining U.S. leadership in AI:

1. **AI Diplomacy**: Encourage high-income partners to invest in U.S. infrastructure while lower-income partners help replace China in supply chains.

2. **Location Verification for Advanced Chips**: Mandate city- or state-level reporting for advanced chips, requiring manufacturers to notify if tampered with or diverted to China.

3. **Control Over Compute Infrastructure**: Limit overseas U.S. compute capacity and restrict hosting in non-treaty ally countries.

4. **Agreements Based on Compute Power**: Frame agreements by computational power rather than chip count.

5. **Prohibit PRC Access**: Ban Chinese-origin technology from advanced data centers and restrict access by Chinese nationals or entities.

6. **Security Standards at Overseas Data Centers**: Implement strict security measures including monitoring critical components.

7. **Frontier Model Weights Under U.S Jurisdiction**: Train all frontier models within the United States due to their sensitive nature.

8. **Strategic Alignment from Partners**: Ensure nations benefiting from American AI do not support PRC military agreements.

Moolenaar emphasized that "the stakes are clear" as the U.S and China engage in a new Cold War centered around strategic technologies like AI.

This letter is part of ongoing efforts by the Select Committee to address issues related to CCP's appropriation of U.S innovation and prevent American technology from supporting Beijing's ambitions.

Earlier this week, during a hearing titled "Authoritarians and Algorithms: Why U.S. AI Must Lead," bipartisan legislation called “No Adversarial AI Act” was announced, aiming to prohibit U.S executive agencies from using AI developed by companies linked to foreign adversaries such as the CCP.