Anthropic Quits ITI After Push to Strip Chip Export Bills

Anthropic is ending its membership in the Information Technology Industry Council after the trade group asked Congress to strip three chip-export bills from this year's defense policy package, Axios reported.

The three measures are the AI OVERWATCH Act, the Chip Security Act, and the MATCH Act. The AI OVERWATCH Act would require the Commerce Department to notify Congress and allow a review period before export licenses for sensitive dual-use chips can be approved for adversarial nations. The Chip Security Act would require companies to track their AI chips to counter U.S. tech smuggling. The MATCH Act would push U.S. allies to restrict chip-manufacturing equipment sales to China. ITI's letter went to the Senate and House Armed Services Committees last week.

Supporters of the package, per Axios, argue it would "give existing export controls the durability they lack today and keep the most advanced U.S. chips and chipmaking tools away from China's military and AI labs."

ITI's members include Google, OpenAI and Nvidia. Nvidia has been openly hostile to the smuggling framing behind measures like the Chip Security Act; a company spokesperson said "American firms should focus on innovation and rise to the challenge, rather than tell tall tales that large, heavy, and sensitive electronics are somehow smuggled."

The resignation fits a pattern. Anthropic has previously broken with OpenAI and Google on AI safety legislation, and CEO Dario Amodei has publicly pushed for stronger chip export restrictions in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. The move lands amid a heavy run of China AI coverage on our tracker over the past quarter, from Beijing's compute build-out to smuggling and distillation concerns that the three bills are pitched at.