Amazon (AMZN) and Microsoft (MSFT) have thrown their weight behind legislation that will restrict chipmakers from shipping to China and other foreign countries, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources.
The Guaranteeing Access and Innovation for National Artificial Intelligence, or GAIN AI Act, requires AI chipmakers such as Nvidia (NVDA) and AMD (AMD) to prioritize domestic orders for advanced processors over foreign customers.
The rule “creates an America-First Right of Refusal to ensure American customers are offered the opportunity to purchase advanced AI chips prior to any chip producer applying for a license to export those chips to a foreign adversary nation,” according to Senator Jim Banks.
Microsoft has publicly supported the legislation, while officials at Amazon’s cloud business have told Senate staffers that they are in favor of it, according to the WSJ report. The policy aims to ease access to advanced AI chips for American tech firms like Amazon and Microsoft.
The legislation has seen opposition from some chipmakers and White House officials. Jensen Huang, CEO of the world’s dominant chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA), has long been critical of U.S. efforts to control AI chip exports to China, while the White House administration – both Trump’s and Biden’s – has been wary of state-of-the-art U.S. chips powering Beijing’s military systems and undermining American dominance in AI.
Meta (META) and Alphabet’s Google (GOOG) (GOOGL) could also benefit from the legislation, but neither company has stated a stance. Anthropic (ANTHRO) has said it backs the rule.
The Senate has incorporated the core of GAIN AI into the National Defense Authorization Act, which could come to Trump by the end of 2025 for approval.