Senate Passes Bill Requiring Disclosure of Chinese Tech

The United States Senate supported legislation requiring U.S. corporations to report investments in Chinese technologies on July 25.

By a vote of 91 to 6, the Senate approved the amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which is expected to take effect in 2023.

The amendment will require U.S. corporations to notify federal agencies of outbound investments in Chinese technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI)-related semiconductors.

Senators Bob Casey (D-Pennsylvania) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) authored the amendment, which is a version of the Outbound Investment Transparency Act that targets hazards associated with U.S. foreign investments in China and other countries.

Casey elaborated on his support for the amendment by stating that, with such intelligence, the United States is in a position to “take control” of its economic future.

“We need this type of outbound investment notification to understand just how much… critical technology we are transferring to our adversaries via these capital flows.“

The current version of the bill is anticipated to pass the Senate by the end of the week, after which it will be reconciled with another bill passed by the House earlier and then sent to the desk of President Joe Biden.

These new measures are a continuation of the U.S. and China’s back-and-forth regarding emerging technologies.

U.S. officials announced on June 28 that they are considering limiting the computing capacity of semiconductor chips to reduce the supply of artificial intelligence chips on the Chinese market.

A few days later, on July 3, the Chinese government announced its intentions to regulate the export of metals used in the fabrication of semiconductors.

The U.S.’s most recent action came on July 5, when it reportedly thought about restricting Chinese companies’ access to cloud computing services in the country. This would include services from Amazon Web Services and Microsoft, among others.