President Donald Trump is making moves against former President Joe Biden’s work in curbing the export of sophisticated AI chips. Trump’s administration plans to rescind and modify a Biden-era rule that curbed the export of sophisticated artificial intelligence chips, a spokeswoman for the Department of Commerce said on Wednesday.
“The Biden AI rule is overly complex, overly bureaucratic, and would stymie American innovation,” the Commerce spokeswoman said, according to Reuters. “We will be replacing it with a much simpler rule that unleashes American innovation and ensures American AI dominance.”
The regulation introduced by Biden was meant to keep AI chip technology in the hands of the U.S. and block China’s access. Repealing or modifying Biden’s AI chip export framework means that the U.S. government will loosen restrictions on the sale of advanced AI chips to certain countries. Biden’s 2023 policy aimed to limit exports of powerful AI technology, particularly to adversarial nations like China and Russia, to protect U.S. national security.
READ: Nvidia might take a $5.5 billion hit due to tightening US-China export rules (April 16, 2025)
However, the policy faced criticism from U.S. tech companies, which argued that it was too restrictive and complicated, potentially hurting their global competitiveness. Under the Trump administration, the goal is to simplify these rules and create a more flexible framework. It is believed that this new approach would still safeguard national security but offer clearer guidelines for tech companies, enabling them to continue competing internationally. By rolling back the Biden-era restrictions, the U.S. hopes to maintain leadership in AI technology while fostering international trade and business opportunities. This shift is expected to benefit major semiconductor firms like Nvidia and AMD, who had expressed concerns over the previous policy.
Last week, Reuters reported the Trump administration was working on changes to the rule that would limit global access to AI chips, including possibly doing away with its splitting the world into tiers that help determine how many advanced semiconductors a country can obtain.
Trump’s latest move could be a sign of further goodwill, as chip and semiconductor manufacturers have pledged billions to bring their manufacturing to U.S. shores, something Trump has been working towards for a while.