Comment by Thea D. Rozman Kendler

Thank you to WorldECR and editor Tom Blass for including me in this terrific event, focused on trade control law and regulations, policy, and practice. I’m particularly glad to participate in the London version of this conference – my time as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration in the Biden-Harris Administration has been marked by extensive cooperation and collaboration with my United Kingdom counterparts, so it’s especially fitting that I’m here this week for my last international outreach during my tenure. When I took on this role almost exactly three years ago, we established three clear priorities that have not wavered: 1. Degrade Russia’s military capabilities and thwart Russia’s unjustifiable invasion of Ukraine; 2. Impede the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC’s) ability to modernize its military, a threat that is exacerbated by the Chinese Communist Party’s Military-Civil Fusion (MCF) strategy; and 3. Deepen our export control relationships and coordination with our allies and partners. In the national security context, though, it is the advanced compute integrated circuits that present the greatest threat to the United States, and our allies and partners. This is because those chips feed artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. [...] In contrast, an AI model works more like a human brain: it can take in rich inputs – audio and visual signals, for example – and make sense of them, and even recommend or take appropriate actions. AI chips can do many operations in parallel. [...] It’s exactly what we’re trying to forestall with our export controls. [...] Through all of these measures, whether against the PRC or Russia, or any of the other myriad export control actions we’ve taken in this Administration, one thing is crystal clear: we must work with our allies.