The Trump administration is undoing its predecessors’ artificial intelligence policies, as governments’ plans to regulate artificial intelligence are on shaky ground across the West.
The Commerce Department on Tuesday said it would formally revoke the Biden administration’s AI diffusion rule, a regulatory framework that would have imposed new controls on chips and model weights.
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security said it plans to issue a replacement rule in the future.
Jeffrey Kessler, under secretary of commerce for industry and security, directed the bureau not to enforce the Biden administration’s rule as President Trump’s team begins the process of canceling it and replacing it.
“The Trump Administration will pursue a bold, inclusive strategy to American AI technology with trusted foreign countries around the world, while keeping the technology out of the hands of our adversaries,” Mr. Kessler said in a statement. “At the same time, we reject the Biden Administration’s attempt to impose its own ill-conceived and counterproductive AI policies on the American people.”
Just before President Biden left office in January, his administration proposed a new regulatory framework for AI diffusion. The interim final rule gave the new administration less than four months to respond.
The semiconductor industry vehemently opposed the Biden team’s plans. AI safety company Anthropic, however, urged for stronger export controls on advanced semiconductors.
While the Trump administration formulates its new policy, the Bureau of Industry and Security said it was taking actions intended to strengthen export controls in the interim.
The bureau said it was issuing new guidance that warned about the consequences of letting Chinese AI models use American chips, that said using certain Huawei chips anywhere in the world violated U.S. export controls and that told U.S. companies how to protect their supply chains.
The bureau said the Biden team’s rule would have damaged its diplomacy with “dozens of countries” and that the bureau’s new export control actions would allow America to “maintain global AI dominance.”
U.S. policymakers are not the only ones considering rewriting AI rules, as the European Union appears willing to enact changes as well.
A top European Commission official said Tuesday that the commission is open to amending the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act.
Kilian Gross, head of the commission’s AI policy unit, said at a Politico summit in Brussels that the commission would weigh targeted changes if efforts to simplify the EU’s rule are not sufficient.
Decisions about whether or how to regulate AI in the West arrive as American technologists are turning their attention elsewhere.
Amid Mr. Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, Nvidia announced plans to sell AI chips to Humain, a subsidiary of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.
“AI, like electricity and internet, is essential infrastructure for every nation,” said Nvidia founder Jensen Huang on the company’s website. “Together with Humain, we are building AI infrastructure for the people and companies of Saudi Arabia to realize the bold vision of the Kingdom.”
