Accelerating AI Data Center Security
AI systems are advancing at breakneck speed and already reshaping markets, geopolitics, and the priorities of governments. Frontier AI systems are developed and deployed using compute clusters of hundreds of thousands of cutting-edge AI chips housed in specialized data centers. These AI data centers are likely tempting targets for sophisticated adversaries like China and Russia, who may seek to steal intellectual property or sabotage AI systems underpinning military, industry, or critical infrastructure projects.
How AI Chips Are Made
Adapted from a section of a report by Erich Grunewald and Christopher Phenicie, this blog post introduces the core concepts and background information needed to understand the AI chip-making process.
Compute is a Strategic Resource
Computational power (“compute”) is a strategic resource in the way that oil and steel production capacity were in the past. Like oil, and like steel production capacity, compute is scarce, controllable, concentrated, and highly economically and militarily useful. Just as oil and steel were and remain strategic resources to some extent, compute is now also a strategic resource of very high importance.
A Whistleblower Incentive Program to Enforce U.S. Export Controls
A Whistleblower Incentive Program to Enforce U.S. Export Controls: "A program modeled on the successful SEC program would help America overcome its export control enforcement woes.”
Countering AI Chip Smuggling Has Become a National Security Priority: An Updated Playbook for Preventing AI Chip Smuggling to the PRC
The Center for a New American Security (CNAS), in collaboration with the Institute for AI Policy and Strategy, has released a new working paper which catalogues evidence that substantial quantities of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chips are being smuggled into China, undermining U.S. national security.
Location Verification for AI Chips
Adding location verification features to AI chips could unlock new governance mechanisms for regulators, help enforce existing and future export controls by deterring and catching smuggling attempts, and enable post-sale verification of chip locations. This paper is meant to serve as an initial introduction to location verification use-cases for AI chips with comparison of different methods.
Technology to Secure the AI Chip Supply Chain: A Working Paper
This is a linkpost to a piece that Tao Burga, an IAPS fellow, co-authored with researchers from CNAS (Center for a New American Security).
Are Consumer GPUs a Problem for US Export Controls?
This report analyzes the potential impact of high-end consumer GPUs on the efficacy of US export controls on AI chips. It studies three stockpiling scenarios and what AI capabilities those may enable, and makes recommendations for policymakers.
Spreadsheets vs. Smugglers: Modernizing the BIS for an Era of Tech Rivalry
This blog post by Erich Grunewald (IAPS) and Samuel Hammond (the Foundation for American Innovation) argues that Congress should increase the funding of the Bureau of Industry and Security.
Secure, Governable Chips
Today, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), in collaboration with the Institute for AI Policy and Strategy, has released a new report, Secure, Governable Chips, by Onni Aarne, Tim Fist, and Caleb Withers.
The report introduces the concept of “on-chip governance,” detailing how security features on AI chips could help mitigate national security risks from the development of broadly capable dual-use AI systems, while protecting user privacy.
Introduction to AI Chip Making in China
This primer introduces the topic of Chinese AI chip making, relevant to understanding and forecasting China's progress in producing AI chips indigenously.
Preventing AI Chip Smuggling to China
We link to a working paper which was led by Tim Fist of the Center for a New American Security, and coauthored with IAPS researcher Erich Grunewald. It builds on IAPS's earlier report on AI chip smuggling into China.
How Expertise in AI hardware Can Help with AI Governance
This article was written for the organization 80,000 Hours by an IAPS researcher. It discusses why and how it may be valuable to build expertise in AI hardware and use that expertise to reduce risks and improve governance decisions.
AI Chip Smuggling into China: Potential Paths, Quantities, and Countermeasures
This report examines the prospect of large-scale smuggling of AI chips into China and proposes six interventions for mitigating that.