Maria Cantwell Calls For ‘More Aggressive’ Export Strategy To Strengthen U.S. Position In AI Race

Forbes Breaking News

During a Senate Commerce Committee hearing last week, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) spoke about AI export strategy.

Transcript

00:00Okay, well. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to continue that same theme generally about

00:05competitiveness. Do we need NIST to set standards? If you could just yes or no,

00:11just go down the line. I don't think we need it. It can be helpful. Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. So

00:24in the context of what we're talking about here, we're really just talking, I don't know,

00:32Mr. Smith or Mr. Integrator or Dr. Su, the issue here is if we want to move fast, we want to create,

00:39just like with electricity, the standards by which we want to move fast. Here, I would just call it

00:46code for code is what we want, right? We want NIST to do something in the standard setting that will

00:51allow us to move much faster. Is that right, either Mr. Smith or Mr. Integrator? What I would

00:58say is this. First of all, NIST is where standards go to be adopted, but it's not necessarily where

01:04they first go to be created. Right. Thank you for that clarity. We're talking about an industry,

01:12IEEE, you know, lots of different organizations, industry input, and then they're adopted. So yes,

01:19let's clarify that. Let's clarify that. I think that's the way it works. Yes. But you think we

01:23need to do that, particularly if the United States wants to lead? We will need industry standards. We

01:29will need American adoption of standards. And you are right, we will need U.S. efforts to really ensure

01:35that the world buys into these standards. Okay. Mr. Integrator? I think it's important that when you're

01:44working with standards, what that allows for is a common vocabulary, which allows for acceleration.

01:49And so, to the extent that we can step into that role and establish touch points where everyone can

01:57agree on specific things, that will lead to an acceleration both domestically and abroad.

02:04And I don't know if, you know, drilling down more on what you think those are, but in general,

02:12you know, when I think about the internet and HTTP or HTML or any of the numbers, TCP, IP, we're talking

02:19about things that allowed us to move faster. And getting those standards established helped us do

02:25that. On the export issue, Mr. Integrator, the issue of cloud sources shouldn't be left out. If we say,

02:36let's go with Malaysia, Malaysia is going to tell us that they can certify that there is no, you know,

02:44diversion of these ships to Asia, you know, to China. And we basically have a way that we can make sure that

02:52that this is understood and monitored, then we also want access, right? We want access by U.S. companies.

03:01Yeah, I think Lisa's point was excellent, right? At the end of the day, the world wants to be able to

03:09build and deploy artificial intelligence in a very broad way. And if we, you know, nature abhors a vacuum.

03:20If we do not step into that role, other technology will step in that role. If it is suboptimal,

03:28so be it. It's better to have something that is suboptimal than have nothing. And so that is what-

03:34Well, we don't want a reoccurrence of a Huawei that develops faster and then has a government

03:39backdoor and then we all have to raise opposition. I'm for a tech NATO. I'm for the five most sophisticated

03:45democracies and tech nations setting the rules of the road and saying, this is who you should buy

03:50from. Don't buy from anybody else who has a government backdoor. Not a good idea. So that's

03:55how we get leverage. You know, I'm not so hot on the president's tariff agenda for this very reason,

04:01because we're not building the alliances, we're creating the enemies. And what I want to do is get

04:06the supply chain here, get the semiconductor flow here, lower the cost and go as fast as we can.

04:13Yeah, I agree with that. I don't think that that's that's I don't think anybody's not going to agree

04:20with that. Right. I think that's an excellent objective. I just think that

04:24what will happen beyond the five NATO companies is that there will be a demand for artificial

04:34intelligence, and they will proceed with what they can proceed with. Dr. Su, what is your view of this

04:40about how we win, how we protect our objectives, but we're more aggressive on the on the export strategy?

04:46Well, I think there is a clear recognition that we need an export strategy. And so having,

04:51you know, having this conversation is is very important. And from our perspective,

04:56the idea is to ensure that our allies and frankly, I use allies in the very broadest sense,

05:02get access to the great American technology that we have with the appropriate controls in place. And

05:07I think you can do both. To your earlier comment, ranking member can't dwell about the need to have

05:14US technologies in those countries. I think I think those countries are actually very interested in

05:19doing that because we do have the best technology today. And using that to really build this broad AI

05:26ecosystem is is really our opportunity. I agree. Thank you so much.

Category

Transcript

Recommended