u/Salaried_Employee

Rep. Josh Gottheimer, who is generally tough on China, just sent a letter to Anthropic questioning their decision to reduce certain safety protocols after yet another source code leak.

He’s concerned that weakening safeguards could make it easier for advanced AI capabilities to leak or be distilled by other actors.

This raises an interesting point: if even companies that are cautious about national security risks are having leaks and scaling back safety, how effective are strict export controls really in preventing technology transfer?

Huawei recently launched the Atlas 350 AI accelerator, which they claim delivers: 1.56 PFLOPS of FP4 compute performance

Up to ~2.8x–3x the performance of Nvidia’s H20 (the restricted, lower-spec version Nvidia is allowed to sell in China)

Significantly lower price (around half or less than comparable high-end options). This chip is optimized for AI inference workloads and represents a big step in China's push for self-reliance.

The restrictions didn't "kill" China's AI progress, they supercharged domestic investment. China poured hundreds of billions into its semiconductor industry (SMIC, Huawei's Ascend, Biren, etc.). Government policies now strongly favor "domestic substitution."