US House panel to vote on bill to give Congress authority over AI chip exports

By Karen Freifeld

NEW YORK, Jan 21 (Reuters) - A key Republican lawmaker scheduled a committee vote on Wednesday for a bill that would give Congress power over artificial intelligence chip exports, despite pushback from White House AI czar David Sacks, among others.

Representative Brian Mast of Florida, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced the "AI Overwatch Act" in December after President Donald Trump greenlighted shipments of Nvidia's NVDA.O powerful H200 AI chips to China.

The legislation would give the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Banking Committee 30 days to review and potentially block licenses issued to export advanced AI chips to China and other adversaries.

One source said the act's odds of passage increased after a coordinated media campaign last week against the bill.

The legislation would ensure "our cutting-edge AI chips cannot be used by the Chinese military," Mast said at a hearing last week titled, "Winning the AI Arms Race against the Chinese Communist Party."

A spokesperson for Sacks and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.

Last week, Sacks reposted a post from an X account called “Wall Street Mav” that claimed the bill was being orchestrated by Never Trumpers and former staffers to Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden to undermine Trump's authority and his America First strategy. The post singled out the CEO of AI firm Anthropic, Dario Amodei, claiming he hired former Biden staffers to push the issue.

“Correct,” Sacks wrote.

An Anthropic spokesperson declined to comment on the claims and the bill. But Amodei has been outspoken about preventing China from getting advanced chips like the H200.

“It would be a big mistake to ship these chips,” Amodei said on Tuesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “I think this is crazy. It’s a bit like selling nuclear weapons to North Korea."

Conservative activist Laura Loomer, among others, also tweeted criticism of the bill last week, calling it "pro-China sabotage disguised as oversight."

Mast rejected the criticism. “The president was beyond wise to prevent ASML ASML.AS from selling the most advanced chip making tools to China, as well as banning Nvidia Blackwell chips,” he wrote in response to Sacks’ comment. “You can advise him to sell H200 chips to China if you want, I advise the opposite.”

Nvidia did not respond to requests for comment. Nor did the U.S. Department of Commerce, which oversees export controls.

If the bill moves out of committee, it must pass in both the full Senate and the House, and then must be signed by the president.

(Reporting by Karen Freifeld; Editing by Jamie Freed)

((Karen.Freifeld@thomsonreuters.com))