Moolenaar Proposes New Framework to Keep China Dependent on AI, Limit Their Advanced Capabilities

August 26, 2025

WASHINGTON, D.C. – This week, Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI) of the House Select Committee on China sent a letter urging U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to adopt a rolling technical threshold (RTT) approach to AI chip exports to China that provides a marginal improvement over the most advanced chips that China can domestically produce at scale. In addition, the approach aims to limit China’s aggregate AI compute to 10% of the U.S.’s in order to secure enduring U.S. AI dominance.

The RTT approach comes after the Chairman's opposition to the resumption of sales of Nvidia's H20 equivalent chips to China last month.

Chips like the H20 currently outperform anything mass produced by Chinese firms. According to the Select Committee's April 2025 DeepSeek report, these chips were instrumental in enabling the PRC's flagship reasoning model, R1.

"We have repeatedly seen the Chinese Communist Party proliferate its technology and weapons to enable Russia, Iran, and proxy groups to attack American partners and allies. Iran, in particular, will be eager to take advantage of PRC-enabled AI capabilities," writes Moolenaar in the letter. "A version of R1 that DeepSeek has fine-tuned for the PLA using American chips is now a feasible option on the menu of Chinese military capabilities for sale. For example, AI-enabled drone swarms sold to Iran with sophisticated autonomous navigation, cooperative networking, electronic warfare capabilities, and target discrimination could threaten American or Israeli units in the region in ways that current systems may struggle to counter."

Chairman Moolenaar's RTT framework would keep China dependent on U.S. hardware and software while limiting their advanced AI capabilities.

Read the full letter here.

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QUESTIONS? Contact Jack Clem at jack.clem@mail.house.gov.

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