Bipartisan Efforts To Restrict Chinese Access To Advanced AI Tech In Wake Of Nvidia Scandal Are Growing: Report

Both Republican and Democrat lawmakers are looking to speed up legislation to prevent China from acquiring advanced AI chips after Jensen Huang, the former CEO of chipmaker and AI giant Nvidia, resigned following the revelation that he had had an affair with a woman who is a suspected Chinese spy.

Measures that would increase export controls on the technology and allow Congress to review and potentially prevent the sale of chips approved by the administration of President Donald Trump now enjoy significant bipartisan backing, the Financial Times reported on Sunday.

Brian Mast, John Moolenaar, and Rick Crawford, three Republican lawmakers who chair House committees on foreign affairs, China and intelligence, urged their colleagues in the House on Thursday to "immediately pass the AI OVERWATCH Act, Chip Security Act, MATCH Act, and Remote Access Security Act in the NDAA."

The NDAA - National Defense Authorization Act - governs the budget of the Defense Department.

The acts mentioned would treat chip sales more like foreign arms sales, crack down on the illicit smuggling of chips away from their intended recipient, encourage U.S. allies to align policies on export controls of AI technology to potential U.S. adversaries and restrict those adversaries from accessing the tech remotely through cloud computing services.

The outgoing Republican Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, as well as the (likely) incoming Speaker of the House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries have signalled their support for some of the measures.

Johnson said on Thursday that there was a "consensus" developing in Congress regarding the "export controls on chips to China," whereas Jeffries told reporters on Monday that "there are provisions currently in the Senate version of the NDAA [the National Defense Authorization Act] that will restrict chip access to China that I strongly support."

In May 2025, the Trump administration repealed a law introduced under President Joe Biden to restrict the export of the most advanced U.S.-made chips to China. Trump has also consistently stood up for Huang, who has long been a close ally of his, since the news of the affair with the alleged Chinese espionage operative broke.

Trump has since called Huang a "tremendous talent" and "legend," with the New York Times reporting that the president called the executive on Tuesday to urge him to fight for his job. Huang stepped down on Thursday.

The president was reportedly briefed on at least two occasions about the intelligence risk posed by Huang's lover Alice Huang (no relation), who had been an executive at a Singapore-based data center company and customer of Nvidia's called Megaspeed.

Megaspeed has been accused of diverting the advanced chips it acquired from Nvidia to China, a revelation which has caused a rift in the White House between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, with the former reportedly accusing the latter of failing to blacklist Megaspeed.