US House panel passes act to give Congress authority over AI chip exports

The US House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday voted to pass a bill known as the "AI Overwatch Act," which would expand congressional oversight of chip exports to countries including China, Russia and Iran.

The legislation still needs to clear the full House and Senate before it is officially signed into law.

Forty-two committee members have voted in favour of advancing the bill. Two voted against, and one responded present.

The act was introduced by representative Brian Mast of Florida, the committee chair, last month after US President Donald Trump greenlit Nvidia's sale of its powerful H200 AI chips to China.

Mast suggested the bill is to assure that America's most advanced AI chips won't be used to fuel China's military capabilities.

Reports say the latest version of the act also bans Nvidia's top-end Blackwell chips.

The House Foreign Affairs Committee will have 30 days for review and is given more licenses to block the chips' shipments to US adversaries.

The act stipulated that any plan to ship AI chips to countries such as China, Russia and Iran requires formal notification to the Congress. And any processor with computing capacity equivalent to or higher than H20 will be subject to stringent oversight.

Meanwhile, the committee passed another act requiring the US commerce secretary to submit annual reports to assess China's AI prowess and review whether Washington's export curbs of high-end AI chips are in line with national security demands.