US Panel Advances Chip Security Act

House Foreign Affairs Committee advanced H.R. 3447, voting 42‑0 to approve the Chip Security Act on March 26, 2026. (subscriber.politicopro.com) The bill text directs the Secretary of Commerce to issue standards for “chip security mechanisms” and explicitly defines those mechanisms to include software-, firmware-, hardware‑enabled, or physical security measures. (govtrack.us) H.R. 3447 targets integrated circuits listed under Export Control Classification Numbers 3A090 and 3A001.z as “covered integrated circuit products,” tying the standards to specific ECCNs used in current export policy. (govtrack.us) Committee debate and press coverage highlight a central technical requirement: exported advanced AI chips would need location‑verification or continuous confirmation mechanisms that prove where a device physically resides. (subscriber.politicopro.com) Bloomberg and committee statements say the bill would also require the Commerce Department to write anti‑diversion reporting rules aimed at major chip designers and cloud customers such as Nvidia and AMD. (bloomberg.com) Congress moved the measure after two enforcement catalysts this month: a Justice Department indictment accusing Super Micro executives of conspiring to smuggle roughly $2.5 billion in Nvidia‑powered servers to China, and the House Select Committee on the CCP’s “DeepSeek” report alleging tens of thousands of restricted Nvidia chips powered a Chinese AI project. (justice.gov) The Department of Commerce’s BIS has already issued updated advanced‑computing export rules and Entity List additions in the past year, placing the Chip Security Act in the context of an active regulatory tightening cycle. (bis.gov)