The White House is proposing requiring US cloud companies to determine whether foreign entities are accessing US data centers to train artificial intelligence (AI) models, US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo said on Friday.
“We can’t have non-state actors or China or folks who we don’t want accessing our cloud to train their models,” Raimondo said in an interview.
“We use export controls on chips,” she said. “Those chips are in American cloud data centers, so we also have to think about closing down that avenue for potential malicious activity.”
Photo: Reuters
US President Joe Biden’s administration is taking a series of measures to prevent China from using US technology for AI, as the burgeoning sector raises security concerns.
The proposed “know your customer” regulation was released on Friday for public inspection and is to be published tomorrow.
“It is a big deal,” Raimondo said.
The US is “trying as hard as we can to deny China the compute power that they want to train their own [AI] models, but what good is that if they go around that to use our cloud to train their models?” she said.
Last month, Raimondo said that the US Department of Commerce would not allow Nvidia Corp to ship its “most sophisticated, highest-processing-power AI chips, which would enable China to train their frontier models.”
The US government is worried about China developing advanced AI systems on a variety of national security grounds and has taken steps to stop Beijing from receiving cutting-edge US technologies to enhance its military.
The proposal would require US cloud computing companies to verify the identity of foreign persons who sign up for or maintain accounts that utilize US cloud computing through a “know-your-customer program or customer identification program.” It would also set minimum standards for identifying foreign users and would require cloud computing firms to certify compliance annually.
Raimondo said that the US cloud computing companies “should have the burden of knowing who their biggest customers are training the biggest models, and we’re trying to get that information. What will we do with that information? It depends on what we find.”
Biden in October last year signed an executive order requiring developers of AI systems that pose risks to US national security, the economy, public health or safety to share the results of safety tests with the US government before they are released to the public.
The commerce department plans to soon send those survey requests to companies.
Raimondo said that companies would have 30 days to respond.
“Any company that doesn’t want to comply is a red flag for me,” she said.
Carl Szabo, general counsel at NetChoice, a tech industry trade group, said that the commerce department is implementing Biden’s “illegal” executive order “to force industry reporting requirements for AI.”
He added that requiring US cloud companies to report use of their resources by non-US entities “for training large language models could deter international collaboration.”
The paramount chief of a volcanic island in Vanuatu yesterday said that he was “very impressed” by a UN court’s declaration that countries must tackle climate change. Vanuatu spearheaded the legal case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, which on Wednesday ruled that countries have a duty to protect against the threat of a warming planet. “I’m very impressed,” George Bumseng, the top chief of the Pacific archipelago’s island of Ambrym, told reporters in the capital, Port Vila. “We have been waiting for this decision for a long time because we have been victims of this climate change for
Rainfall is expected to become more widespread and persistent across central and southern Taiwan over the next few days, with the effects of the weather patterns becoming most prominent between last night and tomorrow, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Independent meteorologist Daniel Wu (吳德榮) said that based on the latest forecast models of the combination of a low-pressure system and southwesterly winds, rainfall and flooding are expected to continue in central and southern Taiwan from today to Sunday. The CWA also warned of flash floods, thunder and lightning, and strong gusts in these areas, as well as landslides and fallen
MASSIVE LOSS: If the next recall votes also fail, it would signal that the administration of President William Lai would continue to face strong resistance within the legislature The results of recall votes yesterday dealt a blow to the Democratic Progressive Party’s (DPP) efforts to overturn the opposition-controlled legislature, as all 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers survived the recall bids. Backed by President William Lai’s (賴清德) DPP, civic groups led the recall drive, seeking to remove 31 out of 39 KMT lawmakers from the 113-seat legislature, in which the KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) together hold a majority with 62 seats, while the DPP holds 51 seats. The scale of the recall elections was unprecedented, with another seven KMT lawmakers facing similar votes on Aug. 23. For a
All 24 lawmakers of the main opposition Chinese Nationalists Party (KMT) on Saturday survived historical nationwide recall elections, ensuring that the KMT along with Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) lawmakers will maintain opposition control of the legislature. Recall votes against all 24 KMT lawmakers as well as Hsinchu Mayor Ann Kao (高虹安) and KMT legislative caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅崐萁) failed to pass, according to Central Election Commission (CEC) figures. In only six of the 24 recall votes did the ballots cast in favor of the recall even meet the threshold of 25 percent of eligible voters needed for the recall to pass,
RSS