The United States is reportedly considering sweeping new controls on chip exports

How and whether the Trump administration plans to regulate semiconductor exports has remained unclear since Donald Trump took office last year. Now, we have an idea of ​​what the administration is thinking.

US regulators have allegedly drafted rules requiring US government approval to ship AI chips anywhere outside the US, Bloomberg reported, citing sources. This would give the United States much greater control over companies like AMD and Nvidia.

TechCrunch has reached out to AMD and Nvidia for comment.

A US Commerce Department spokesperson provided the following: “The Commerce Department is committed to promoting secure exports of America’s technology portfolio. We have successfully promoted exports through our historic agreements in the Middle East, and there are ongoing internal government discussions about formalizing this approach. Today there were reports that we would return to an AI deployment norm. But we will not do that. That was burdensome, overblown, and disastrous.”

In these rules that have been drafted, companies and governments outside the United States must obtain approval from the US Department of Commerce to purchase these chips. Bloomberg reported that the review process will vary based on the size and size of the potential purchase.

For example, a small order by a company outside the United States may require basic review while a large order may require government involvement corresponding to the company.

Of course, this could all change before a final announcement or ruling, but the proposal would represent much greater government involvement than the AI ​​deployment rule put in place under President Joe Biden. The Trump administration officially rescinded Biden’s deployment regulation last May, less than a week before it went into effect.

While this is the first idea of ​​what broad export restrictions would look like, it’s not entirely surprising that the Trump administration is looking for more government involvement rather than less involvement based on how it handles potential Nvidia exports to China. The Trump administration flip-flopped several times on whether or not the company could send its advanced AI chips to the Chinese market before deciding to allow exports if the US Commerce Department could approve customers.

However, this regulatory approach could ultimately harm US chip companies and the current US dominance in the global AI market. If chips become more difficult to obtain from the United States, companies may increasingly turn to other sources, especially as chip companies outside the United States continue to develop more advanced chips.

In Nvidia’s case, export regulations are already hurting it. The semiconductor giant has not seen its customers in China return after nearly a year of uncertainty over whether or not they would retain access to artificial intelligence technology.