Business
How China Cannot Use Its Technology for Artificial Intelligence Because of US Intervention
By - 27 Jan 2024 06:23 PM
The Biden administration is proposing requiring US cloud companies to determine whether foreign entities are accessing US data centers to train AI models, US Commerce Secretary 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 with Reuters. "We use export controls on chips," she noted. "Those chips are in American cloud data centers so we also have to think about closing down that avenue for potential malicious activity."
The Biden administration is taking a series of measures to prevent China from using US technology for artificial intelligence, as the burgeoning sector raises security concerns.
The "know your customer" rule that was proposed was made available to the public on Friday and will be published the following Monday. It is significant, according to Raimondo.
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 stated.
Raimondo stated last month that Nvidia would not be permitted by Commerce "to ship is the most sophisticated, highest-processing-power AI chips, which would enable China to train their frontier models."For a variety of national security reasons, the US government is concerned about China developing sophisticated AI systems, so it has taken action to prevent Beijing from obtaining cutting-edge US technologies to bolster its armed forces.
Under the proposed legislation, foreign nationals who register for or keep accounts using US cloud computing would have to provide identification through a "know-your-customer program or Customer Identification Program." Additionally, cloud computing companies would have to certify compliance on an annual basis, and it would set minimum standards for identifying foreign users.Raimondo said 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. With that information, what will we do? Depending on what we discover.
President Joe Biden in October 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 intends to request those surveys from businesses in the near future. Companies will have 30 days to reply, Raimondo told Reuters. "Any company that doesn't want to comply is a red flag for me," she stated.
Biden's "illegal" executive order is being implemented by Commerce, according to Carl Szabo, general counsel at the tech industry trade group NetChoice, "to force industry reporting requirements for AI." He went on to say that making US cloud providers disclose how non-US organizations were using their resources "for training large language models could deter international collaboration."
