Export approvals stall at BIS

U.S. approvals for some Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices artificial intelligence chip exports to China are taking months because the office that signs off on them has lost staff. (bloomberg.com) Bloomberg reported on April 10 that the Bureau of Industry and Security has lost dozens of experienced employees over the past year, amounting to nearly 20% turnover in its rulemaking and licensing ranks. The same report said tighter review of individual licenses by senior officials has slowed processing and created billions of dollars in export backlogs. (bloomberg.com) This bottleneck comes after the Commerce Department changed the rules on January 13, 2026, to allow case-by-case review for exports to China of Nvidia H200, Advanced Micro Devices MI325X, and similar chips. Before that change, those applications generally faced a presumption of denial. (bis.gov) The Bureau of Industry and Security is the Commerce Department office that handles “dual-use” exports, meaning products such as advanced chips that can serve civilian customers and military programs. Its license reviews also involve the Departments of Defense, Energy, and State. (gao.gov) The staffing problem was on the record before this month’s slowdown story. In a June 26, 2025 report, the Government Accountability Office said the bureau had not assessed its long-term workforce needs and had not done a bureau-wide workforce planning effort since 2016, even as its workload expanded. (gao.gov) The agency was already under strain last summer. Reuters reported on August 1, 2025 that thousands of export license applications were stuck in limbo and that one U.S. official described the backlog as the longest in more than three decades. (usnews.com) The scale of the normal workload helps explain why attrition matters. In fiscal year 2023, the Bureau of Industry and Security processed 37,943 export license applications with an average processing time of 38 days, according to the bureau’s annual report. (bis.gov) Now the wait is much longer for some applications. Transport Topics, citing Bloomberg, reported that current waiting periods are roughly double the 38-day fiscal 2023 average, leaving chipmakers and overseas buyers waiting on administrative decisions after Washington already reopened a narrow path for sales. (ttnews.com, bis.gov) Commerce has defended tougher screening before. In the August 2025 Reuters report, a spokesperson said the bureau would “no longer rubber-stamp” applications that raised national security concerns, framing the slower pace as stricter review rather than dysfunction. (aol.com) For Nvidia, Advanced Micro Devices, and their customers in China, the immediate question is no longer only what the policy says on paper. It is how quickly the Bureau of Industry and Security can rebuild enough capacity to turn case-by-case review into actual yes-or-no decisions. (bis.gov, bloomberg.com)