August 21, 2025
Sharper: Chips and Export Controls
As competition between the United States and China has intensified, advanced technology has become the latest battlefield. After years of restricting China’s access to advanced AI chips, the Trump administration recently changed course, agreeing to allow NVIDIA and AMD to send advanced chips to China in exchange for a 15 percent fee paid to the United States. Why is Washington dedicated to restricting Chinese access to advanced technology, is it working, and where does the Trump administration go from here? CNAS experts answer these questions and more in this edition of Sharper.
Features
Derisky Business | Selling H20 Chips to China Will Come at a Cost, with Liza Tobin
Liza Tobin has been at the heart of the shift in U.S. policy toward China. At the National Security Council, she served as China director during both the Trump and Biden administrations. On this episode of Derisky Business, Tobin joins Geoffrey Gertz to analyze the Trump administration’s chip decision, while also reflecting on the broader motivations behind export controls and whether they will be successful in slowing China's progress.
Report | Global Compute and National Security
Much has been made of China’s rapid rise in AI capabilities. Yet in one key area, the United States still holds a key advantage. Compute, the physical infrastructure of AI, relies on the procurement and deployment of advanced chips. In this report, Janet Egan analyzes the status of the compute race, and writes on why maintaining—or even expanding—chip export controls could be a major key in preserving America’s AI leadership.
Report | Countering AI Chip Smuggling Has Become a National Security Priority
When export controls harden, Chinese companies become increasingly reliant on smuggling high-end chips. Despite U.S. efforts to counter smuggling, these efforts remain under-resourced and have significantly strained bureaucratic capacity, as the Biden administration's Under Secretary of Commerce Alan Estevez told Derisky Business last year. In a recent policy brief, Erich Grunewald and Tim Fist assess the impact of smuggling on the Chinese AI industry, before writing a series of recommendations on how government and private industry can better counter chip smuggling.
Selling H20 Chips to China Will Come at a Cost, with Liza Tobin
We interrupt our summer break to provide quick reactions to news this week that the Trump administration will begin allowing Nvidia and AMD to sell certain advanced semiconduc...
Technology & National Security
Global Compute and National Security
The current pathway to breakthrough artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities relies on amassing and leveraging vast “compute”—specialized chips housed within massive data cen...
Technology & National Security
Countering AI Chip Smuggling Has Become a National Security Priority
Based on the available evidence, artificial intelligence (AI) chip smuggling has likely been occurring at a scale that significantly undermines U.S. attempts to restrict the P...
Commentary
Analysis from Geoffrey Gertz, Janet Egan, Liza Tobin, Lennart Heim, and Matt Pottinger
Indo-Pacific Security
America Should Rent, Not Sell, AI Chips to China
Selling AI chips to China outright reduces America's AI lead for little benefit....
Energy, Economics & Security
Scrapping AI Export Controls Is Self-Defeating
Beijing surely has two goals in mind: Signal to domestic companies that they ought to shun American technology as soon as possible, and manipulate Nvidia to reveal how it desi...
Energy, Economics & Security
Goodbye to Small Yard, High Fence
Will Mr. Trump’s more confrontational approach work better?...
In the News
Insights from Geoffrey Gertz and Liza Tobin
Energy, Economics & Security
Trump Administration Said to Discuss Taking Stake in Intel
The Trump administration is in talks with Intel Corp. to have the US government take a stake in the beleaguered chipmaker, according to people familiar with the plan, in the l...
Energy, Economics & Security
Trump’s Chip Deal Sets New Pay-to-Play Precedent for U.S. Exporters
President Donald Trump’s agreement with two leading American producers of computer chips to take a cut of their revenue in exchange for permission to export products to China ...
Indo-Pacific Security
Nvidia, AMD to Pay 15% of China Chip Sale Revenue to U.S., Official Says
Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab and AMD (AMD.O), opens new tab have agreed to give the U.S. government 15% of revenue from sales to China of advanced computer chips, a U.S. off...
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