Trump Administration Plans New Rules to Close Loophole Allowing China Remote Access to U.S. AI Chips
nashnova research
The U.S. Commerce Department is drafting a rule to block Chinese AI firms from remotely accessing Nvidia-class chips via third-country data centers, with public comment expected as early as September. This means → the regulatory gap left by repealing Biden's AI diffusion rule is about to be filled — and China's offshore compute channel is narrowing.
What loophole is this rule targeting?
Current rules require government approval to sell AI chips directly to China — but they don't cover a workaround: Chinese firms renting data-center capacity in Thailand, Singapore, or other third countries and accessing the chips remotely.
In plain terms = the chips never cross China's border, but the compute does — today's law controls the sale of hardware, not the rental of processing power.
The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS, the Commerce Department arm that enforces export controls) is drafting a rule that targets this channel directly.
How does this differ from Biden's approach?
In January 2025 the Biden administration published an "AI diffusion framework" that sorted countries into three tiers and capped chip shipments globally — a sweeping approach.
Nvidia publicly called the rule "unprecedented and misguided"; the Trump administration repealed it in May 2025 but has yet to deliver the promised replacement.
This means → the new rule is a "streamlined alternative" — it drops the broad country-by-country restrictions and zeroes in on the single remote-access loophole.
Why are officials contradicting themselves?
Jeffrey Kessler, Under Secretary for Industry and Security, told a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in July: "We are not going to propose a rule modeled on Biden's policy" — and called the Biden rule "a bad rule."
Yet he added: "There will be further regulatory action in chips and AI."
This reflects an unresolved split inside the Trump administration on how far controls should go — the new rule still risks being shelved.
Who gets hit hardest?
Nvidia and other chipmakers: sales to offshore data centers serving Chinese clients could be curtailed.
Cloud providers and data-center operators: higher customer-screening costs and potential loss of business.
Chinese AI firms such as Moonshot AI and DeepSeek: domestic alternative chips still cannot match Nvidia's reliability and scale performance — a narrower compute channel would make training top-tier models significantly harder.
Why does this matter going forward?
The rule could enter public comment as early as September, but the path from draft to enforcement remains uncertain.
Michelle Nie, a visiting fellow at the Center for a New American Security, said closing the remote-access loophole "would strip Chinese firms of access to the most powerful compute" — directly hindering their ability to catch up with the latest U.S. AI models.
This means → whether this rule ultimately takes effect is a key test of the Trump administration's coherence on AI export controls.
市场有风险，内容仅供研究参考，不构成投资建议。