US lawmakers urge AI safety institute to counter China’s growing AI threat

In a strong bipartisan move highlighting America’s growing concern over China’s artificial intelligence ambitions, House Select Committee leaders on Strategic Competition with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have urged the Department of Commerce to significantly expand the responsibilities of the US AI Safety Institute (AISI).

Committee Chairman John Moolenaar and Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi, in a joint letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, stressed the need for greater vigilance and preparedness in the face of China’s accelerating AI capabilities.

The appeal follows rising security apprehensions surrounding the PRC’s AI strategies, including data privacy threats and potential misuse of advanced models.

The lawmakers cited the recent release of DeepSeek’s large language model, R1, in January 2025, as a key turning point.

According to findings by the Select Committee on the CCP (SCCCP), the R1 model raised red flags over unauthorized redirection of American personal data to Chinese servers, government-influenced model manipulation, and intellectual property theft via model distillation techniques.

Highlighting these developments as a “strategic warning,” Moolenaar and Krishnamoorthi called for a stronger, more centralized role for AISI in the nation’s AI defense infrastructure.

They advocated for a unified, government-wide strategy to ensure the United States remains at the forefront of AI innovation while guarding against threats posed by adversarial technologies.

The lawmakers praised AISI’s technical expertise and its ongoing collaborations with key private sector players, noting that these relationships uniquely position the institute to take the lead in safeguarding national AI interests.

They proposed that AISI begin benchmarking and evaluating Chinese AI models in comparison to US systems to assess competitiveness and detect vulnerabilities.

Furthermore, the committee urged AISI to assist American tech firms in protecting their intellectual property and play a proactive role in forming a national AI security framework to address the evolving US-China tech rivalry.

Concluding their letter, Moolenaar and Krishnamoorthi reaffirmed their commitment to supporting AISI’s mission and expressed their desire to understand its operational needs to enhance its capacity.

The initiative marks a sharp escalation in Washington’s strategic posture on artificial intelligence, reflecting the broader geopolitical stakes as AI becomes a critical front in US-China competition.

(daijiworld.com)