Chinese Tech Investments Reports Were Demanded by U.S. Senate

The Senate strongly backed a law that makes it compulsory for U.S. companies to report any investments in Chinese technologies.

The Senate of the United States supported bipartisan legislation requiring American businesses to disclose any Chinese tech investments on July 25. 

The Senate approved the National Defence Authorization Act (NDAA) modification with a resounding 91 to 6 vote, and it is expected to go into effect later in 2023.

With the modification, American businesses must inform the federal government of any outbound in Chinese tech investments, particularly semiconductors for artificial intelligence (A.I.).

The amendment, which is a modification of the Outbound Investment Transparency Act that focuses on the risks of American overseas investments in nations like China, was written by Democratic Senator Bob Casey and Republican Senator John Cornyn.

Regarding his outlook on the edit, Casey made the following comment:

“We need this type of outbound investment notification to understand just how much… critical technology we are transferring to our adversaries via these capital flows.“

He noted that the United States might position itself to “take control” of its economic future using this intelligence.

The current version of the measure is anticipated to be approved by the Senate by the end of the week. After that, it will be confirmed with a different bill previously approved by the House of Representatives before being delivered to President Joe Biden.

DUE TO THESE NEW POLICIES, the U.S. and China are still exchanging barbs over new technology.

To decrease the flow of A.I. chips available in the Chinese market, U.S. officials revealed on June 28 that they are considering capping the computing capacity of semiconductor chips.

A few days later, on July 3, the Chinese government also declared its intention to put export restrictions on metals needed to produce semiconductors.

On July 5, the United States allegedly considered limiting the access Chinese companies would have to cloud computing services hosted in the United States. Products from cloud service providers like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft would fall under this category.