The White House is proposing requiring US cloud companies to determine whether foreign entities are accessing US data centers to train artificial intelligence (AI) models, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said on Friday.
“We can’t have non-state actors or China or folks who we don’t want accessing our cloud to train their models,” Raimondo said in an interview.
“We use export controls on chips,” she said. “Those chips are in American cloud data centers, so we also have to think about closing down that avenue for potential malicious activity.”
Photo: Reuters
US President Joe Biden’s administration is taking a series of measures to prevent China from using US technology for AI, as the burgeoning sector raises security concerns.
The proposed “know your customer” regulation was released on Friday for public inspection and is to be published tomorrow.
“It is a big deal,” Raimondo said.
The US is “trying as hard as we can to deny China the compute power that they want to train their own [AI] models, but what good is that if they go around that to use our cloud to train their models?” she said.
Last month, Raimondo said that the US Department of Commerce would not allow Nvidia Corp to ship its “most sophisticated, highest-processing-power AI chips, which would enable China to train their frontier models.”
The US government is worried about China developing advanced AI systems on a variety of national security grounds and has taken steps to stop Beijing from receiving cutting-edge US technologies to enhance its military.
The proposal would require US cloud computing companies to verify the identity of foreign persons who sign up for or maintain accounts that utilize US cloud computing through a “know-your-customer program or customer identification program.” It would also set minimum standards for identifying foreign users and would require cloud computing firms to certify compliance annually.
Raimondo said that the US cloud computing companies “should have the burden of knowing who their biggest customers are training the biggest models, and we’re trying to get that information. What will we do with that information? It depends on what we find.”
Biden in October last year signed an executive order requiring developers of AI systems that pose risks to US national security, the economy, public health or safety to share the results of safety tests with the US government before they are released to the public.
The commerce department plans to soon send those survey requests to companies.
Raimondo said that companies would have 30 days to respond.
“Any company that doesn’t want to comply is a red flag for me,” she said.
Carl Szabo, general counsel at NetChoice, a tech industry trade group, said that the commerce department is implementing Biden’s “illegal” executive order “to force industry reporting requirements for AI.”
He added that requiring US cloud companies to report use of their resources by non-US entities “for training large language models could deter international collaboration.”
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS