Ricketts, Coons Introduce SAFE Chips Act

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senators Pete Ricketts (R-NE) and Chris Coons (D-DE), Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations East Asia subcommittee, led six senators in introducing the Secure and Feasible Exports (SAFE) Chips Act of 2025. The bill codifies into law the Trump Administration’s current limits on which advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) chips are allowed to be sold to Communist China.

“The United States leads the AI race with Communist China due in large part to our dominance of global compute power,” said Senator Ricketts. “At the core of compute are advanced AI chips. The best AI chips are made by American companies. Denying Beijing access to these AI chips is essential to our national security. Codifying President Trump’s current AI chip limitations on Communist China secures this goal. It will allow U.S. chip companies to continue to rapidly innovate and widen our compute lead exponentially.”

“The rest of the 21st Century will be determined by who wins the AI race, and whether this technology is built on American values of free thought and free markets or the values of the Chinese Communist Party,” said Senator Coons. “As China races to close our lead in AI, we cannot give them the technological keys to our future through advanced semiconductor chips. This bipartisan bill will protect America’s advantage in computing power so that the world’s most next generation AI models are built at home by American companies, and the world’s infrastructure is built on the American tech stack.”

“It’s crucial that we protect American AI innovation from Communist China to win the AI race,” said Senator Cotton. “Our bill will codify current administration policy and keep our most advanced technology out of the hands of America’s adversaries.”

“Permitting the sale of advanced chips to Beijing and other adversaries would be tantamount to surrendering a vital U.S. advantage in a global competition for leadership in artificial intelligence — a competition central to our prosperity and national security interests,” said Senator Shaheen. “This bipartisan bill sends a strong signal from Congress that the United States, in coordination with our closest allies and partners, must ensure that the defining technologies of the twenty-first century are led by democratic partners and not authoritarian regimes.”

“If America is going to maintain our strategic competitiveness and security, we need to enforce guardrails to ensure that our adversaries cannot obtain advanced technologies like high-performance chips only to use them against us,” said Senator Kim. “Congress must step up to bolster America’s export control regime which is a critical tool in protecting our national security and technological edge.”

The SAFE Chips Act of 2025 would:

Direct the Secretary of Commerce to deny export license applications for advanced chips to foreign adversary countries for a period not less than 30 months;
After 30 months, the Executive Branch has discretion to update technical parameters as it sees fit;
Define Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Russia, Iran, and the People’s Republic of China, including Hong Kong and Macau, as Foreign Adversary Countries;
Define advanced integrated circuits as any chips more powerful than those currently licensed for export to foreign adversary countries;
And direct the Department of Commerce to publish any proposed updates in the Federal Register that have been approved by a majority vote of the End-User Review Committee and to brief Congress 30 days before any proposed changes.

Bill text can be found here.

Co-sponsors include Senators Tom Cotton (R-AR), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Dave McCormick (R-PA), and Andy Kim (D-NJ).

BACKGROUND

The United States is in a zero-sum competition with Communist China for global AI leadership. AI is a general-purpose technology that will drive the next industrial and military revolution. Our national security requires that we prevent American technology — especially semiconductors and AI — from supporting Communist China’s military modernization. U.S. economic security requires that the U.S. win the race to deploy our full AI tech stack around the world. Communist China views AI as both an economic engine and a core element of its military modernization. Dictator Xi Jinping aims to become the global AI leader by 2030 through state planning, investment, and its Military-Civil Fusion strategy. However, Communist China is unable to produce the quality and quantity of AI chips it needs to compete. They rely on smuggling or legal exports of advanced chips from the U.S.

Since the first Trump administration, the United States has imposed significant export controls on Communist China’s semiconductor industry. The purpose of this policy is to maximize U.S. leadership in the computing capabilities that drive AI advances. Denying licenses for advanced semiconductors deprives foreign adversaries of access to computing resources that directly undermine U.S. economic prosperity and national security. This bill will keep the United States as the leader in the AI race.