Congressman Himes calls chip restrictions a US lever against China — South China Morning Post

Jim Himes, the leading Democrat on the US House Intelligence Committee, said at a Brookings event in Washington that restricting China’s access to advanced chips is a key tool for Washington in the competition for leadership in artificial intelligence. As the South China Morning Post reports, he does not believe the United States will be able to maintain an advantage over China’s advanced AI models indefinitely, but stressed the need to preserve it for as long as possible.

“The only real lever that we have is, of course, slowing the proliferation of advanced chips to China,” Himes said. The congressman is a member of the so-called “Gang of Eight,” a bipartisan group of congressional leaders briefed on classified national security matters.

Chip and energy barriers

During the discussion “AI on the Ballot: Data Centers and the 2026 Midterms,” participants discussed how chip shortages could affect the technological rivalry between the United States and China. Brookings fellow Kyle Chan said the central question is whether China will be able to produce enough chips for domestic AI demand while also competing in overseas markets.

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According to him, in the near term, China is constrained by its own chip manufacturing capabilities and therefore is not competing with the United States in building AI data centers abroad. At the same time, in the medium and long term, Chinese companies are preparing to offer cloud and AI services more broadly outside the country.

Possible expansion of Chinese companies

If chip production in China grows, local companies could offer integrated solutions abroad involving models, equipment and possibly energy resources, Chan believes. He compared this approach to the Belt and Road Initiative, but in the field of artificial intelligence.

Chan also noted that the United States and China have different bottlenecks in developing AI infrastructure: the United States faces the challenge of connecting data centers to the power grid and supplying them with electricity, while China lacks computing capacity and chips. Himes separately mentioned claims that foreign adversaries may be spreading provocative materials concerning data centers in the United States, but acknowledged that he does not know whether this is true.