The policy brief argues that the central goal of U.S. semiconductor export controls should be to maintain American leadership and prevent China from closing the gap. It says that allowing U.S. chipmakers to compete in China can generate revenue for R&D and that advanced chips are essential for frontier AI, so semiconductor leadership affects U.S. competitiveness in AI and other knowledge-intensive industries.

This study found no substantial evidence that recent U.S. semiconductor export controls harmed innovation among 30 leading semiconductor firms. It reports that affected companies increased R&D spending and patent filings, and in some cases outperformed non-impacted peers on these measures.

In December 2023, then–Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo clearly outlined the U.S. strategy for China and its AI ecosystem when she said, “America leads the world in artificial intelligence. America leads the world in advanced semiconductor design, period. . . . We’re a couple years ahead of China. No way are we going to let them catch up.” To achieve this goal, the U.S. national security enterprise has undertaken a massive, multifaceted effort to choke off China’s access to cutting-edge AI and related technologies.

In addition, BIS today announced actions to strengthen export controls for overseas AI chips, including: issuing guidance alerting industry to the risks of using PRC advanced computing ICs, including specific Huawei Ascend chips; issuing guidance warning the public about the potential consequences of allowing U.S. AI chips to be used for training and inference of Chinese AI models. … Today’s actions ensure that the United States will remain at the forefront of AI innovation and maintain global AI dominance.

Effective October 7, 2022, the United States of America implemented new export controls targeting the People's Republic of China's (PRC) ability to access and develop advanced computing and semiconductor manufacturing items.[4] The new export controls reflect the United States' ambition to counter the accelerating advancement of China's high-tech capabilities in these spaces to address its foreign policy and national security concerns.[4] This initiative is key to the U.S.'s ambitions in preventing China's access to advanced computing and semiconductors along with limiting its ability to develop and manufacture its own to maintain a global edge in artificial intelligence capabilities.[4]

In the final week of the Biden administration, the U.S. Department of Commerce released a new interim final export control rule that aims to “regulate the global diffusion” of advanced artificial intelligence chips and models.[2] The rule, if not reversed or revised…will significantly undermine U.S. global AI leadership.[2] Strong global sales of computing technology by U.S. companies translate directly into high levels of domestic investment…The resulting environment is why the U.S. is the destination of choice for the next generation of young entrepreneurs and computer science graduate students…The AI diffusion rule threatens to disrupt this feedback cycle and thereby weaken U.S. leadership in AI.[2]

To protect the U.S. technological edge and competitive advantage in artificial intelligence (AI), the federal government has imposed export controls that restrict access to advanced AI chips, particularly to China.[3] This policy, however, risks unintentionally harming U.S. technological innovation and advantaging foreign competition by broadly limiting access of leading U.S. chip producers to profitable global markets.[3] Yet to sustain long-term U.S. AI competitiveness, policymakers must abandon broad restrictions in favor of a strategy focused on establishing narrow, evidence-based export controls limited strictly to clear security threats and accelerating domestic production and infrastructure development.[3]

Late last year, the Biden Administration issued a final rule amending export controls for semiconductors.[3] Gregory C. Allen at the Center for Strategic and International Studies writes that the 2024 rule aims to prevent China from accessing advanced AI chips and to restrict China’s ability to obtain or domestically produce alternatives.[3] The U.S. Department of Commerce published the final rule in January 2025, with the aim of enabling U.S. companies to “safely export AI technology abroad,” and broadly, the rule enables U.S. companies to export AI chips and capabilities abroad while exempting U.S. allies from regulations that limit the quantity of exportable chips.[3]

As global competition in artificial intelligence (AI) intensifies, the United States faces a strategic dilemma: how to protect its most advanced technologies from misuse abroad without undermining the very ecosystem that sustains its leadership.[4] As the United States tightens controls on advanced AI chips, it must also contend with a shifting perception of U.S. technology and policy in global markets…Policies like the Chip Security Act aim to secure leadership by limiting adversary access, but if not carefully calibrated, they risk eroding the very trust that underpins U.S. dominance in the global semiconductor ecosystem.[4] Rather than reinforcing trust, such measures risk creating openings for foreign suppliers to present themselves as more neutral alternatives…Export controls should enable innovation, not constrain it, and above all, not erode confidence and acceptance of U.S. high-tech manufacturing equipment and products.[4]

The new rule marks a notable shift: license applications for specific AI chips will now be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, provided that the exports meet a series of rigorous supply, security, and testing conditions. This calibrated approach is intended to balance support for the export and adoption of US AI-related technology with the need to protect US national security interests. … The aggregate shipments of the chip to China and Macau must account for no more than 50% of the total quantity of that product that the exporter has shipped to US customers for end-use in the United States. This condition ensures that at least half of the product’s supply serves the US market, reinforcing that China/Macau cannot become the dominant recipient of the chip.

The Biden administration issued its first AI chip export controls in October 2022, restricting the export of AI chips to China, as well as the technology to design and manufacture them.[2] The Biden administration’s export control policy for AI chips has largely been a failure since day one.[2] Blocking access weakens U.S. competitiveness and accelerates China’s efforts to build a self-sufficient chip industry.[2] By cutting off U.S. firms from international markets, the United States is effectively accelerating China’s progress in AI chips; Chinese companies now have a stronger incentive and greater market opportunity to replace U.S. suppliers, spurring domestic innovation and attracting buyers who can no longer rely on American technology.[2]

The article argues that current U.S. export controls are aimed at slowing Chinese development in AI and other technologies, but that they also create hurdles for domestic U.S. industry in chip research, development, and design. It says export controls can generate secondary effects in Chinese industry that may undercut U.S. objectives.

The Biden administration’s proposed export controls would impose sweeping restrictions on chip exports, risking U.S. competitiveness while failing to adequately safeguard national security. … Most fundamentally, placing caps on U.S. exports of AI GPUs will limit market opportunities for U.S. companies while providing an open door for foreign suppliers of AI chips—and Chinese AI chipmakers such as Biren are increasingly competitive in this field—to swoop in and take market share. By artificially restricting AI chip exports to the vast majority of the world, the U.S. government essentially forces open the door for foreign competition across the globe, redirecting revenue that could be flowing to U.S. chipmakers to invest in next-generation chips with competitors abroad. … This risks significantly damaging a high-value-added industry pioneered by U.S. innovators that lead the world in their technology and markets.

The result is a framework that is strategically incoherent.[7] The rule inadvertently demonstrates that there is no version of an AI chip export policy to China that is simultaneously permissive, implementable, enforceable, and protective of US national security.[7] This regulation will allow China’s AI industry to close the gap with the United States and build the largest data centers in the world, and will not stop China’s military or intelligence services from using these chips.[7] The strategic case for selling advanced AI chips to China has always been weak: modest commercial gains for a handful of US chip companies against substantial risks of enabling Chinese military AI capabilities, eroding US technological leadership, and increasing Chinese competition for every other U.S. technology company.[7]

The policy platform says chips will underpin advances in artificial intelligence and other future technologies, but it also warns that recent export-control measures aimed at semiconductor technology have been overly expansive and may unintentionally undermine U.S. semiconductor competitiveness. It states that targeted export controls are needed, while the best way to ensure continued U.S. leadership is through innovation and a strong innovation ecosystem.

US export controls on chips and hardware alone will not prevent China from further developing advanced AI.[8] This policy aims to slow down the progress of Chinese AI and give the US more time to advance domestic AI capabilities, but for the US, its allies and partners, export controls alone will largely fail in this aim.[8] It’s not just because the enforcement of export controls has been leaky and undermined by smuggling; it’s because the policy itself is based on a hardware-centric approach to AI capabilities that the technology has since outgrown.[8] Export controls will remain a key tool for states to try and limit access to their AI technology, but controls alone cannot dictate access to AI development.[8]

The analysis says the potential economic impacts of U.S. export controls extend beyond immediate revenue loss to long-term technological leadership and strategic positioning. It presents a 'short-term advancement' scenario in which controls limit China’s ability to deploy advanced AI at scale and provide a strategic advantage to the United States and its allies, while noting a competing scenario in which controls accelerate Chinese self-sufficiency.

Maintaining a US lead in AI relative to competitors like China, therefore, depends on controlling access to these chips and the associated manufacturing equipment. Export controls serve as the primary mechanism for managing semiconductor access. … This approach principally aims to maintain current US advantages in frontier AI and make it prohibitively expensive for China to replicate US capabilities. … Export controls must transform from reactive compliance mechanisms into proactive strategic instruments. The Compete-Counter-Cooperate framework demonstrates that controls need not conflict with promoting US AI abroad; rather, it enables this by denying China competitive space while allowing allies to scale, with each pillar reinforcing the others.

This companion piece lays out two competing visions: one in which denying China access to cutting-edge chips meaningfully reduces China’s ability to deploy advanced AI systems at scale, and another in which the controls mainly deny revenue to U.S. firms while accelerating China’s push for technological self-sufficiency. It emphasizes that the evidence can support either outcome depending on the time horizon.

The paper argues that export controls are part of a 'defensive' semiconductor strategy intended to slow Chinese tech development and entrench U.S. dominance over key technological chokepoints such as advanced chipmaking software and manufacturing. It also warns that export controls can create domestic costs for U.S. chip research, development, and design and may spur Chinese self-reliance.

The analysis says U.S. AI leadership depends on a carefully calibrated export-control strategy that balances national security with market competitiveness. It warns that restricting access to U.S. chips can incentivize foreign nations to invest in non-U.S. alternatives and fragment the global AI ecosystem, potentially weakening long-term U.S. technological leadership.

Since October 2022, the United States has devoted significant resources to restricting China’s access to artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced semiconductor technologies. These measures include export controls on advanced AI chips, semiconductor manufacturing equipment, and related technologies. The stated objective is to maintain U.S. technological advantages in AI and to prevent China from catching up in critical military-relevant technologies. The effectiveness of these controls in sustaining U.S. leadership, however, remains contested among analysts and industry stakeholders.

The US Commerce Department is tightening rules aimed at blocking China's access to advanced American AI chips.[1] New guidance says Chinese and Macau-based companies must obtain export licenses for high-end chips even when buying through overseas subsidiaries; that includes Nvidia's advanced Blackwell processors.[1] Officials say the clarification closes confusion over earlier policy changes and reaffirms export controls already in place.[1]

The objective of export controls which was to stop all of the inputs, whether U.S. or foreign, into the indigenous development in China that would support the development of advanced semiconductors and artificial intelligence models. The discussion highlighted concerns that while these controls may slow China’s progress, they may also push China to invest more heavily in domestic capabilities and diversify supply chains away from U.S. technology, raising questions about their long-term impact on U.S. leadership in AI.

Export controls on chip sales don't affect the companies that make the equipment used to manufacture chips.[9] The assessment in the post is that these controls pose a challenge for Nvidia and AMD's international revenue growth, but they are either neutral or slightly beneficial for equipment suppliers and pure foundry companies like TSMC.[9] Ultimately, the author argues that these actions only accelerate China's progress in establishing its own comprehensive AI supply chain.[9]