The Biden administration today announced new export restrictions focused on artificial intelligence chips and proprietary neural networks.

The restrictions are outlined in a policy document known as the Interim Final Rule on Artificial Intelligence Diffusion. According to Axios, the goal is to prevent China from obtaining advanced AI chips through third countries. The Biden administration previously rolled out export controls that ban the sale of Nvidia Corp.’s most advanced graphics processing units and other AI hardware to China. 

The first focus of the rules announced today is to streamline small AI chip purchases. Orders for processors with the aggregate computing power of “up to roughly 1,700 advanced GPUs” won’t require a license, the White House stated. This policy is designed to streamline hardware procurement for organizations such as medical institutions that are using GPUs to power “clearly innocuous” machine learning projects. 

The new rule set likewise won’t place any restrictions on AI chip sales to 18 allied countries. However, companies that are based in those countries and wish to deploy a large number of GPUs abroad must apply for Universal Verified End User, or UVEU, status. This authorization will allow them to deploy up to 7% of their AI compute capacity in international data centers.

GPU sales to most other countries will be governed by a second set of rules that will cap processor shipment volumes.

Organizations in those countries that meet the same criteria as companies with UVEU status can apply for a so-called National Verified End User license. According to the White House, the license will allow them to purchase AI chips with the “computational power equivalent to up to 320,000 advanced GPUs” over two years.

Processor orders made by other organizations will count towards a purchase cap of 50,000 advanced GPU per country. Governments can double that number if they meet certain export control, clean energy and technology security requirements. 

The new rules will also expand the AI export controls that apply to “non-trusted actors.” Companies will be prohibited from supplying such actors with the weights of their proprietary AI models’ weights. Weights are configuration settings that play a key role in determining how a neural network analyzes input data. The ban won’t apply to open-source AI models. 

Before implementing the new rules, the Commerce Department will give interested parties 120 days to submit feedback. “We hope that the next administration takes full advantage of those 120 days to listen to experts, industry, industry players, partner countries,” said Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

The proposed rules have drawn mixed reactions. Nvidia called them misguided in a blog post. According to Axios, tech policy advocacy group Americans for Responsible Innovation expressed support for the export controls.

The Associated Press reported that the rules are not expected to affect major cloud providers’ ability to build more AI-optimized data centers. Microsoft Corp. president Brad Smith said in a statement that “we can comply fully with this rule’s high security standards and meet the technology needs of countries and customers around the world that rely on us.”

Photo: Wikipedia