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According to Reuters, sources say the Trump administration is looking to overhaul Biden-era restrictions on global access to AI chips, possibly scrapping the system that divides countries into tiers to determine how many advanced semiconductors they can receive.
As noted by the report, Trump administration officials are reportedly considering abandoning the tiered access system and introducing a global licensing framework based on government-to-government agreements.
Sources cited in the report say the plans are still under discussion. However, if implemented, eliminating the tiers could allow the U.S. to use its advanced chips as an even stronger bargaining tool in trade negotiations, as the report indicates.
Other potential changes include tightening the threshold for licensing exceptions. According to the report, the current rule allows orders below the equivalent of roughly 1,700 of NVIDIA’s high-end H100 chips to bypass country caps, requiring only government notification without a license. However, sources say the Trump administration is considering lowering that cutoff to around 500 H100 chips.
As the report states, the tiered structure has drawn criticism. Some argue that by restricting access to advanced chips, the rules may drive countries—especially those in Tier 2—to turn to China’s unregulated and cheaper substitutes.
Major tech companies such as NVIDIA and Oracle have been actively lobbying the Trump administration to ease the forthcoming restrictions, aiming to safeguard their global AI strategies, as noted by Bloomberg.
The AI Diffusion Rule—set to take effect on May 15—imposes a three-tiered framework limiting AI chip exports to most countries. Each tier sets different restrictions on AI compute deployment. According to Liberty Times, the rule is expected to significantly affect major U.S. tech firms’ overseas data center investment plans.
According to previous media reports, Tier 1 consists mostly of long-standing U.S. allies, including major semiconductor player like Taiwan, the Netherlands, Japan, and South Korea.
Meanwhile, Tier 2 reportedly includes a wide range of countries such as India, Israel, Singapore, Switzerland, and Yemen, while Tier 3 includes countries typically under U.S. arms embargoes, such as China, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Myanmar, Syria, and Venezuela.
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