"It is imperative that we do not allow [Chinese] AI systems to gain significant market share in the United States."
Scaredy Cats
The release of DeepSeek's low-cost R1 model has precipitated an existential crisis in Silicon Valley, whose executives are now begging the government to protect their AI companies from the horrors of the free market.
While some tech leaders are outwardly praising DeepSeek's achievements, others are in the same breath demanding even tighter export controls on Nvidia's AI chips to prevent them from reaching China.
"Well-enforced export controls are the only thing that can prevent China from getting millions of chips, and are therefore the most important determinant of whether we end up in a unipolar or bipolar world," wrote Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei in a recent blog post.
Amodei could get what he wants. In the capital, lawmakers are echoing calls for a crackdown on advanced AI hardware from entering China, The Wall Street Journal reports raising fears that a Chinese AI could win in the marketplace of ideas by becoming popular domestically.
That's Rich
Such talk reeks of hypocrisy. US leaders love to harp on China's so-called "Great Firewall" that blocks or limits access to many Western websites and services, including ChatGPT, enforced under the guise of protecting citizens from misinformation while being used to prop up domestic alternatives.
Now, these freedom-loving power players are basically calling for their own version of such draconian measures to prevent Chinese companies from nipping on American heels.
On Thursday, two members of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party — which should tell you what their whole deal is — called for restricting exports of Nvidia's H20 AI chip, citing speculation that DeepSeek used thousands more of these chips, as well more advanced versions included in the extant restrictions, than the startup has disclosed.
"It is imperative that we do not allow [Chinese] AI systems to gain significant market share in the United States, while acquiring the data of US users that only further enable the capabilities of the AI system," wrote Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI) and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) in a joint statement.
Calling DeepSeek "deeply alarming," Krishnamoorthi added: "Export controls and AI innovation are not mutually exclusive, but two sides of the same coin." The free market at work, folks.
Chip On Shoulder
As an aside, we'd like to note that Nvidia may not be too happy about this talk. The company created the H20 to skirt restrictions that blocked the more powerful H800 for the Chinese market — itself created to be sold in China after the US first banned its flagship H100 chip. Whatever its commitment to American AI hegemony, the sanctions will probably hurt its bottom line.
Nonetheless, Nvidia has stated it's "ready to work" with the Trump administration on its approach to AI, per the WSJ, though it stresses it has found no indication that exports of its chips to Singapore are secretly being diverted to China, as the House committee members suggested.
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