At the same time, prominent US lawmakers seem to be making a major bipartisan push to expand the role of AISI to directly tackle the growing national security threat from China’s big leaps in AI. This as concerns mount about Beijing’s state-backed drive to control world AI, and with it threats to data security, IP, and strategic military advantage.
House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between United States & China (CCP) ranking member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) and chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI) called on the Department of Commerce to expand AISI’s roles within the next month.
Pointing to a “strong national security need for greater understanding, prediction and preparation for PRC’s AI progress,” they wrote in a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
Among the lawmakers’ key “wake-up calls” was the DeepSeek company’s big language model, R1, which was scheduled to be deployed in January 2025. A Committee investigation into DeepSeek, reportedly revealed “multiple national security risks” associated with the service “including the funneling of Americans’ private data to [the PRC], manipulation of the model’s outputs according to [PRC] law, and the potential theft of U.S. AI technology through model distillation.”
As AI matures, the congressmen argue, the importance of seeing around corners and out-anticipating PRC AI capabilities while avoiding strategic surprise will only increase. They call for a whole-of-government approach to guarantee continued American leadership in state-of-the-art AI innovation, and name AISI’s “unique technical expertise, strong industry partnerships, and testing and evaluation experience” as essential assets.
They suggested several ways in which AISI could help secure U.S. national security, from identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the leading PRC AI models and establishing a baseline against which to measure U.S. models to assistance for private sector attempts to stymie the theft of U.S. AI technology.
The bipartisan effort reflects Washington’s mounting unease with China’s aggressive approach to AI, which is closely tied to China’s military-civil fusion doctrine and to the country’s global expansion efforts including the Digital Silk Road, as a direct threat to U.S. technological leadership and to the vital needs and security interests of the United States.
