Ricketts Chairs Subcommittee Hearing on American AI Leadership, Countering Communist China
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Yesterday, Chairman Pete Ricketts (R-NE) led a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, The Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy. The subcommittee hearing highlighted the need to counter Communist China’s challenge to American AI leadership.
“Artificial Intelligence will revolutionize daily life and its military uses will shape the global balance of power,” Chairman Ricketts said. “Unlike the moon landing, the finish line in the AI race is far less clear for the U.S.—it may be achieving Artificial General Intelligence, human-level or greater machine cognition. Communist China, by contrast, is focused on rapidly diffusing AI across industry, manufacturing, robotics, and smart cities.”
“What’s at stake is simple: a U.S.-led future that benefits the free world, or a China-led AI order that reshapes the global system in line with their authoritarian values,” Ricketts said. “The risk could not be higher. This race will be won by whoever attracts the best talent, wields the best chips, and trains the best algorithms.”
Ricketts announced his intent to introduce the SAFE Chips Act that would ensure the U.S. maintains its lead in AI development.
“America’s early lead rests in large part on our dominance of global compute power. At the core of compute are advanced AI chips, the best of which are made by American companies,” Ricketts said. “Denying Beijing access to these chips is therefore essential. President Trump had the foresight in his first administration to restrict specialized semiconductor manufacturing equipment from being sold to Communist China. Without cutting-edge tools, Chinese fabs produce AI chips that are inferior to ours. Today, our top chips are roughly five times more powerful than theirs, and we manufacture them at 10 times the annual scale.”
“Further controls by the Trump and Biden administrations on advanced AI chips have forced Chinese AI companies to smuggle U.S. chips to keep up,” Ricketts continued. “If we sustain these limits while U.S. firms innovate and diffuse our technology globally, our compute lead will widen exponentially. That’s why Senator Coons and I plan to introduce the SAFE Chips Act. This legislation would put in statute the Trump administration’s current red lines on what AI chips are allowed to be sold to Communist China.”
Watch the Video HERE.
Ricketts’ comments were made in a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, The Pacific, and International Cybersecurity Policy: Countering China’s Challenge to
American AI Leadership. Witnesses in the hearing included Mr. Gregory C. Allen, Senior Adviser to the Wadhwani AI Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS); Mr. Tarun Chhabra, Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Head of National Security Policy at Anthropic; Dr. Chris Miller, Professor, the Fletcher School, Tufts University and Non-Resident Senior Fellow, American Enterprise Institute; and Dr. James Mulvenon, Chief Intelligence Officer, Pamir Consulting, LLC.
TRANSCRIPT
“Almost 70 years ago, Sputnik launched the greatest technological competition in US history.
“The space race with the Soviet Union, which transformed global science and reshaped the Cold War.
“Today, we face a similar contest, this time with Communist China and even higher stakes.
“Artificial Intelligence will revolutionize daily life and its military uses will shape the global balance of power.
“Beijing is racing to fuse civilian AI with its military to seize the next revolution in military affairs.
“However, unlike the moon landing, the finish line in the AI race is far less clear for the US—it may be achieving Artificial General Intelligence, human-level or greater machine cognition.
“Communist China, by contrast, is focused on rapidly diffusing AI across industry, manufacturing, robotics, and smart cities.
“These diverging visions were made clear this summer when both the US and Communist China released new AI strategies.
“The Trump administration’s AI Action Plan centers on openness, markets, and liberal norms: cutting red tape, building data centers and other AI infrastructure, exporting our full AI technology stack—including hardware, models, software, applications, and standards—to allies and partners, countering Beijing in international forums, and enforcing export controls.
“Beijing’s AI Plus strategy champions state control, sovereignty, and sustained high-level diplomacy to shape the global environment.
“What’s at stake is simple: a US-led future that benefits the free world, or a China-led AI order that reshapes the global system in line with their authoritarian values.
“The risk could not be higher.
“This race will be won by whoever attracts the best talent, wields the best chips, and trains the best algorithms.
“America’s early lead rests in large part on our dominance of global compute power.
“At the core of compute are advanced AI chips, the best of which are made by American companies.
“Denying Beijing access to these chips is therefore essential.
“President Trump had the foresight in his first administration to restrict specialized semiconductor manufacturing equipment from being sold to Communist China.
“Without cutting-edge tools, Chinese fabs produce AI chips that are inferior to ours.
“Today, our top chips are roughly five times more powerful than theirs, and we manufacture them at 10 times the annual scale.
“Further controls by the Trump and Biden administrations on advanced AI chips have forced Chinese AI companies to smuggle US chips to keep up.
“If we sustain these limits while US firms innovate and diffuse our technology globally, our compute lead will widen exponentially.
“That’s why Senator Coons and I plan to introduce the SAFE Chips Act.
“This legislation would put in statute the Trump administration’s current red lines on what AI chips are allowed to be sold to Communist China for 30 months to preserve our edge.
“Xi Jinping has made clear he has no intention of remaining reliant on American technology.
“The CCP’s recent Fourth Plenum doubled down on the goal of technological self-reliance.
“The US and our allies, including the Netherlands, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea, control nearly every critical node of the supply chain, which is the most complex in human history.
“This is a structural advantage that Beijing cannot easily overcome.
“Together, we must collectively enforce semiconductor export controls and close loopholes so Xi Jinping’s strategy fails.
“To win the AI race, we must also confront our vulnerabilities.
“Computing alone is not enough, and Communist China has advantages elsewhere.
“AI data centers require massive energy.
“Communist China generates twice the electricity we do and is rapidly expanding capacity while our grid ages.
“China leads in domestic AI adoption and is exporting its tech globally, while US adoption lags.
“It produces 27 million more STEM graduates per decade than the US, even as we face an AI talent shortage.
“Communist China now leads in open AI models, accelerating diffusion of its technology, standards and influence.
“It also dominates critical minerals and rare earth elements, which are the lifeblood of AI tech and hardware.
“Communist China completely controls the sector with near monopolies in magnets, cobalt, and lithium.
“Communist China’s recent restrictions on global exports show how it can use that leverage to dominate the world and what leverage that creates for it.
“President Trump’s recent critical minerals deal with Australia and other allies is a good first step, but far more is needed.
“Some argue these advantages mean that Communist China will inevitably win the AI race.
“They said the same thing during the space race.
“They misunderstand Americans’ resolve and ingenuity.
“They were wrong then, and they are wrong again this time.
“But success will require the right policies and sustained investment.”