U.S. export office losing staff
The Bureau of Industry and Security has lost about one‑fifth of its licensing staff, and approvals for Nvidia and AMD AI‑chip exports to China are now taking months. Reports say the staffing shortfall is slowing export licensing and creating a bottleneck for companies that need timely approvals for hardware shipments. (Tom's Hardware, Chip Briefing)
The office that approves sensitive United States tech exports has lost nearly one in five staff, and licenses for Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices chips to China are now taking months. (bloomberg.com) Bloomberg reported on April 10 that the Bureau of Industry and Security shed 101 employees since 2024, a 19% drop in headcount, based on Office of Personnel Management figures, LinkedIn updates and agency records. The same report said turnover among licensing and rulemaking staff approached 20%. (bloomberg.com) The backlog is showing up in processing times. Bloomberg said average license turnaround rose to 76 days in the first half of 2025, up from 38 days in fiscal 2023, when the bureau handled 37,943 applications and denied 2%. (bloomberg.com, bis.gov) The Bureau of Industry and Security is the Commerce Department office that decides whether companies can ship controlled products abroad, including advanced processors that can train artificial intelligence systems. When reviews slow down, hardware can sit in limbo even after customers are lined up. (bis.gov, bloomberg.com) Those delays now cut against a policy change the Trump administration announced on January 13, 2026. The bureau said it would review Nvidia H200, Advanced Micro Devices MI325X and similar chip exports to China on a case-by-case basis if applicants met security conditions. (bis.gov) The current bottleneck follows another tightening a year earlier. In April 2025, the Commerce Department imposed new license requirements on Nvidia’s H20 and Advanced Micro Devices’ MI308 chips for China, Hong Kong, Macau and other embargoed destinations. (cnbc.com, techcrunch.com) The stakes are large for both companies. Nvidia said in its fiscal 2025 annual report that China, including Hong Kong, accounted for 13% of revenue, and Reuters reported that China was Advanced Micro Devices’ second-largest market in 2024 at about $6.23 billion, or more than 24% of sales. (investor.nvidia.com, usnews.com) Advanced Micro Devices said in April 2025 that the new controls could produce charges of as much as $800 million tied to inventory, purchase commitments and reserves. Nvidia said the same month that the H20 restrictions would force a $5.5 billion writedown. (cnbc.com, bloomberg.com) Reuters reported in August 2025 that thousands of export applications across industries were stuck in limbo and that one United States official described the backlog as the longest in more than three decades. The bureau did not publicly dispute those figures in the reports cited here. (usnews.com, reuters.com) For chipmakers, the problem is no longer just whether Washington allows a sale. It is whether the office that must sign off can do it fast enough to keep those sales moving. (bloomberg.com, tomshardware.com)
