US Senator seeks action over China AI chip diversion
Washington, Nov 12
US Senator Michael Bennet has demanded answers from the Trump administration about suspected diversion of advanced American artificial intelligence chips to China.
The Colorado Democrat, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, requested written responses by November 24 from Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Attorney General Todd Blanche, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton.
In a letter released to the media on Wednesday (local time), Bennet asked whether Commerce would restrict shipments to Megaspeed or place it on the Entity List.
"Our export control regime must be able to identify and curtail entities actively seeking to evade those controls," he wrote.
He sought coordination with Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia on this issue. He also asked for measures addressing Chinese access to restricted technology through overseas subsidiaries and remotely accessible computing services.
Citing reporting by The New York Times, Bennet also requested an update on the Justice Department's reported continuation of an investigation initially led by Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security.
Megaspeed has denied involvement in illegal chip transfers.
The company asserted that those reviews found no evidence of illicit transfers or other illegal activity. That is Megaspeed's account of the inspections, rather than an independently established regulatory finding.
"We operate fully within the bounds of all applicable export control regulations and maintain the highest standards of legal and ethical conduct," the statement says.
The statement predates Bennet's letter and is not a response to his latest demands.
Nvidia has separately said it stopped sales and shipments to Megaspeed in June 2025 and that the prohibition remains in effect, according to The Wall Street Journal.
An Nvidia spokesman told the newspaper that the company obtained permission from the Commerce unit overseeing export controls for parts and replacement components supplied subsequently.
The Journal also reported that the Bureau of Industry and Security defended its enforcement procedures following questions about the handling of the investigation.
"BIS conducts all enforcement strictly by the book," a spokesman told the newspaper.
The Congressional demand comes amid reported disagreement within the administration over how to handle Megaspeed.
CNN reported on Wednesday, citing two people familiar with the matter, that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent challenged Lutnick during a Situation Room discussion the previous week over Commerce's reluctance to designate the company a potential national-security threat.
Megaspeed describes itself as a specialised cloud provider offering access to Nvidia graphics processors, virtual servers, storage and networking. Its advertised services include computing resources for machine learning and AI inference, which involves running trained models.
— IANS
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