Is the Remote Access Security Act now being considered by Congress a mistake? In its present form, it may be, Reza Moradinezhad suggests.
Although this legislation, which has passed the U.S. House, is intended to cope with “a real national security problem,” the law could also make it too hard for non-hostiles to use our computing infrastructure (National Review, July 8, 2026).
The right balance
“China is steadily reducing its dependence on U.S. technology and becoming more capable of competing in the infrastructure that will support future AI systems. Washington should take that trend seriously and avoid policies that unnecessarily strengthen China’s competitive position.”
The official summary of the Remote Access Security Act states: “This bill broadens the scope of the U.S. export control system to include remote access of items…. The Export Control Reform Act of 2018…provides a permanent statutory basis for controlling the export of dual-use goods (e.g., items with both civilian and military uses) and certain military parts and components. This bill applies export controls under ECRA to remote access of items, thereby allowing Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security to issue licenses and impose penalties related to remote access of controlled items.”
The purpose of the Act is to prevent enemy countries like the People’s Republic of China from gaining access to restricted microchip power by renting computing power through the cloud. Enabling the Commerce Department to regulate foreign access in this way would close the loophole.
But the law as written may end up doing too much, argues Moradinezhad.
Foreign customers provide billions in cloud revenue and help reinforce the network effects that keep American AI companies dominant. Yet, depending on how RASA is interpreted and implemented, companies that employ Chinese nationals or multinational engineering teams could be unsure whether they are legally permitted to use American AI services, even if they have no connection to China’s government or military….
An improved version of RASA would include clearer rules for trusted foreign customers, reasonable compliance pathways for multinational firms, and explicit guardrails to avoid penalizing legitimate commercial users with no connection to adversarial governments or militaries.
The main part of the proposed legislation as it stands, Section 2, is simply a series of amendments to the Export Control Reform Act of 2018. None of this is problematic in itself, it seems, as long as clearer rules are added “for trusted foreign customers, reasonable compliance pathways for multinational firms, and explicit guardrails to avoid penalizing legitimate commercial users with no connection to adversarial governments or militaries.”
Tradeoff
Export restrictions come with a tradeoff that would be exacerbated if acceptable buyers and renters of U.S. computing power are not adequately protected.
“Restrictions can slow adversaries, but they can also motivate competitors, create new markets for non-U.S. suppliers, and push foreign customers to diversify away from American technology. In the context of cloud computing, that trade-off may be even more sensitive because customers can switch providers without waiting for the physical supply chain to change.”
Similar arguments have been used—for example, by the founder and CEO of Nvidia, Jensen Huang—to oppose restrictions of advanced U.S. technology altogether. He stresses that if Red China were isolated from U.S. technology, it would simply develop its own tech ecosystem. (Yes, but without U.S. assistance, Huang fails to add. The benefits of U.S. tech for the Chinese Communist Party either are or are not negligible.)
According to Moradinezhad, though, the U.S. “can block adversarial military access to advanced AI compute while preserving trusted global access to American platforms.”
