[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Donald Trump is looking into ways to safeguard US AI infrastructure from potential threats emanating from China.
His administration is drafting a ban on US imports of Chinese data center components, four sources familiar with the discussions told Reuters.
The ban is meant to help insulate the infrastructure that underpins the US AI boom from potential threats.
At the center of the drafted ban being pushed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) – which is charged with overseeing the US telecom industry – are optical transceivers, which allow data to flow through fiber-optic cables at lightspeed.
These quick-moving data pipelines ensure the AI models can process and navigate large amounts of information, and the ban would bar the importation of new Chinese-made transceivers.
The move is meant to prevent Chinese entities from stealing data, installing malware or disrupting US data centers, which house the chips necessary to create, train and run AI models.
'Transceivers definitely pose a risk,' AI policy expert Divyansh Kaushik told Reuters. 'As the data center buildout scales up, you want to make sure the data center supply chain is secure from the get-go.'
The FCC still may modify or cancel the ban altogether, sources told Reuters, indicating that the decision is not final. |