The U.S. Department of Commerce is formalizing new, stricter export controls for AI accelerator hardware, with a tiered licensing structure based on shipment size. The rules would require buyers of the largest quantities, such as clusters using 200,000 or more GPUs, to invest in U.S. AI infrastructure and engage in intergovernmental security talks.
Commerce officials explicitly denied any return to the previous "AI Diffusion Rule," calling that approach burdensome and disastrous. The new proposed system, however, introduces requirements like operational transparency and potential on-site inspections for medium and large-scale exports, which could make the rules more complex.
The main topics covered are the new U.S. export control strategy for AI hardware, the specific multi-tiered licensing requirements, and a comparison to the rejected AI Diffusion Rule from the prior administration.
US Commerce Department confirms harsh new AI export rules, shoots down reports over the return of Biden-era AI Diffusion rule — DoC to formalize a new approach to strategic AI accelerator export controls
U.S. DoC is committed to promote secure exports of American AI hardware.
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The U.S. Department of Commerce has issued a statement confirming that the U.S. government is looking to change AI hardware export rules, but provided little by way of detail. The officials confirmed that the U.S. DoC is looking to formalize an approach under which buyers of large quantities of AI accelerators must invest in U.S. AI infrastructure to obtain their hardware.
"The Commerce Department is committed to promoting secure exports of the American tech stack," a statement by the U.S. DoC reads. "We successfully advanced exports through our historic Middle East agreements, and there are ongoing internal government discussions about formalizing that approach."
The newly proposed export rules introduce a multi-level licensing structure tied to computing capacity. Smaller shipments of up to 1,000 Nvidia GB300 GPUs would undergo an expedited approval process; medium-scale deployments would need to secure pre-authorization from the U.S. Department of Commerce before applying for export license as well as operational transparency, disclosure of business activities, and potential on-site inspections by U.S. authorities; while planned large AI clusters set to use 200,000 of GB300 GPUs or more and operated by one entity in one country would require commitments to invest in U.S. AI infrastructure as part of the arrangement as well as intergovernmental talks with the U.S. to make national security assurances.
The terms attached to recent export licenses allowing Cerebras and Nvidia to supply hardware to the United Arab Emirates included a requirement that the Middle Eastern country invest one dollar in U.S. AI infrastructure for every dollar spent on its own domestic AI buildouts. If the same terms were to be attached to export licenses to other countries, then this would make hardware from AMD, Cerebras, Nvidia, and other suppliers of AI accelerators 2X more expensive for companies in these countries.
The U.S. DoC shot down claims of a return to anything resembling the AI Diffusion Rule from the Joe Biden era: "Today there was reporting that we were returning to the AI diffusion rule," the statement reads. "We will not. It was burdensome, overreaching, and disastrous."
While the AI Diffusion Rule was indeed very complicated, some approaches of the new rumored regulations would make them even more burdensome than the criticized export regime from early 2025.
The AI Diffusion Rule divided countries into three tiers based on trust and risk levels. Tier 1 included the U.S. and 18 close allies like Australia, Canada, Japan, Taiwan, the U.K., and much of Western Europe, which faced minimal restrictions on AI exports. In Tier 2 countries, entities could import up to 1,700 Nvidia H100 GPUs (or equivalent) without a license, and these did not count toward national AI chip limits. Tier 3 was banned altogether.
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Meanwhile, getting up to 320,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs required entities in Tier 2 countries to qualify as National Validated End Users (NVEUs) and meet strict security requirements. Unverified organizations in Tier 2 were allowed to buy up to 50,000 GPUs per country, though the limit was expandable to 100,000 if their government reached a formal agreement with the U.S. Under no circumstances did the AI Diffusion Rule mandate investments in U.S. AI infrastructure by purchasers of American AI hardware.
If the new regulation is enacted, anything above 1,000 GB300 would be subject to pre-authorization before export licenses could be issued, which includes shipments to 18 allied nations. Getting 200,000 or more GB300 GPUs would essentially mandate investments in the U.S. AI buildouts. Then again, the reported rules are not final, and many of the requirements may be removed in the final versions of the proposed export regime.
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Anton Shilov is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. Over the past couple of decades, he has covered everything from CPUs and GPUs to supercomputers and from modern process technologies and latest fab tools to high-tech industry trends.
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