FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Caroline Tabler or Patrick McCann (202) 224-2353
May 8, 2025
Cotton Introduces Bill to Prevent Diversion of Advanced Chips to America’s Adversaries and Protect U.S. Product Integrity
Washington, D.C. — Senator Tom Cotton (R-Arkansas) today introduced the Chip Security Act, legislation that will prevent advanced American chips from falling into the hands of adversaries like Communist China by improving oversight of advanced chips and directing Commerce and DoD to study promising chip security mechanism.
“We must do better at maintaining and expanding our position in the global market, while safeguarding America’s technological edge. With these enhanced security measures, we can continue to expand access to U.S. technology without compromising our national security,” said Cotton.
Text of the bill may be found here.
The Chip Security Act would direct the Secretary to:
- Require a location verification mechanism on export-controlled advanced chips or products with export-controlled advanced chips within 6 months of enactment and require exporters of advanced chips to report to BIS if their products have been diverted away from their intended location or subject to tampering attempts.
- Study, in coordination with the Secretary of Defense, other potential chip security mechanisms in the next year and establish requirements over the next few years for implementing such mechanisms, if appropriate, on covered advanced chips. This longer timeline accommodates the years-long technological roadmap for development of the next generation of advanced chips.
- Assess, in coordination with the Secretary of Defense, the most up-to-date security mechanisms annually for three years and determine if any new mechanisms should be required
- Make recommendations annually for three years on how to make export controls more flexible, thus streamlining shipments to more countries.
- Prioritize confidentiality when developing requirements for chip security mechanisms.
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