US lawmakers introduce bill to bar Chinese AI in US government agencies

Yahoo

5 hours ago

By Stephen Nellis
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday planned to introduce a bill in both houses of Congress that would bar U.S. executive agencies from using artificial intelligence models developed in China, including those from DeepSeek.
The introduction of the bill, dubbed the "No Adversarial AI Act," comes after Reuters reported that a senior U.S. official has concluded that DeepSeek is aiding China's military and intelligence operations and has had access to "large volumes" of Nvidia's chips.
DeepSeek shook the technology world in January with claims that it had developed an AI model that rivaled those from U.S. firms such as ChatGPT creator OpenAI at much lower cost. Since then, some U.S. companies and government agencies have banned the use of DeepSeek over data security concerns, and President Donald Trump's administration has mulled banning its use on U.S. government devices.
The bill introduced Wednesday into the U.S. House of Representatives by Representative John Moolenaar, a Michigan Republican who chairs the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, and Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat who is the ranking member on the committee, would create a permanent framework for barring the use of all Chinese AI models from U.S. executive agencies, as well as those from Russia, Iran and North Korea.
The bill would require the Federal Acquisition Security Council to create a list of AI models developed in those countries and regularly update it.
Federal agencies would not be able to buy or use those AI technologies without an exemption, such as for carrying out research, from the U.S. Congress or the Office of Management and Budget. The law also contains a provision that can be used to get technologies off the list with proof that they are not controlled or influenced by a foreign adversary of the U.S.
"The U.S. must draw a hard line: hostile AI systems have no business operating inside our government," Moolenaar said in a statement. "This legislation creates a permanent firewall to keep adversary AI out of our most sensitive networks - where the cost of compromise is simply too high."
Also co-sponsoring the bill in the House are Representative Ritchie Torres, a New York Democrat, and Representative Darin LaHood, an Illinois Republication. In the U.S. Senate, the bill will be led by Senators Rick Scott, a Florida Republican, and Gary Peters, a Michigan Democrat.