Geopolitics & defense
State & law · entries: 44
articles
scenarios
- SC-2026-0003“An attack described in words”
events
- The US Department of Homeland Security publishes an order: federal civilian agencies must stop procuring DeepSeek products and remove from their IT systems both those products and third-party products built on DeepSeekLaws & regulation · Geopolitics & defense · Cybersecurity · Compute export controls · federalregister.gov ↗
- China’s Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Science and Technology put out for public comment amendments to the catalogue of technologies prohibited or restricted from export: 23 AI technologies are added to it — large models, agents, computing clusters; technologies already made public through open source or research papers are not subject to controlLaws & regulation · Geopolitics & defense · Software development · Compute export controls · news.cn ↗
- OpenAI bans a Russian and an Iranian influence operation that used its models to run false-front think tanks and journalists; it rates the Russian one Category 5 on a six-point scale for the first timeElections & politics · Media & information · Geopolitics & defense · Generative AI · openai.com ↗
- A company owner is arrested in California, charged with smuggling servers with American GPUs worth more than $300 million to China via Malaysia and SingaporeGeopolitics & defense · Justice & courts · Compute export controls · justice.gov ↗
- The FCC adds foreign power inverters and robots (humanoid, quadruped, mobile) to its “Covered List”: new models will not be authorized for sale in the USGeopolitics & defense · Industry & robots · Laws & regulation · Humanoid robots · docs.fcc.gov ↗
- NVIDIA: the US issues H200 licenses with inspection and a 25% levy, but the Chinese government restricts purchases, and sales to China are under 1% of data center revenue for the quarterBusiness & markets · Geopolitics & defense · Compute export controls · sec.gov ↗
- The US allows the UAE government and approved companies to receive advanced chips and servers without licensesGeopolitics & defense · Laws & regulation · Compute export controls · bis.gov ↗
- Epoch AI: by the end of 2025, between 290,000 and 1.6 million H100 equivalents had been smuggled into China, median 660,000, roughly a third of China's computing capacityGeopolitics & defense · Compute export controls · epoch.ai ↗
- Stanford AI Index 2026: as of March 2026 the best US model (Claude Opus 4.6) leads the best Chinese one in the Arena ranking by just 2.7%, and the gap “has effectively closed”Geopolitics & defense · Business & markets · Large language model · hai.stanford.edu ↗
- BIS begins reviewing applications to export the H200 and AMD MI325X to China on a case-by-case basis instead of a presumption of denialGeopolitics & defense · Laws & regulation · Compute export controls · bis.gov ↗
- The US Department of Justice shuts down an AI chip smuggling network to China: from October 2024 to May 2025 H100 and H200 chips worth at least $160 million were exported or attempted to be exportedGeopolitics & defense · Justice & courts · Compute export controls · justice.gov ↗
- Anthropic: a group it attributes to the Chinese state used Claude Code for cyber espionage against about 30 targets; AI performed 80–90% of the workCybersecurity · Geopolitics & defense · Autonomous AI agents · anthropic.com ↗
- After the meeting of the US and Chinese leaders in Busan, China suspends some of its export restrictions until 10.11.2026, and its ban on exporting gallium and germanium to the US until 27.11.2026Geopolitics & defense · Compute export controls · mofcom.gov.cn ↗
- China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs: China opposes the politicization and weaponization of tech and trade issues, which disrupt the stability of global industrial and supply chainsGeopolitics & defense · Compute export controls · fmprc.gov.cn ↗
- The US issues licenses to sell the H20 to China; officials expect 15% of the revenue to go to the government, but there is no regulation providing for itGeopolitics & defense · Business & markets · Compute export controls · sec.gov ↗
- CERT-UA reports LAMEHUG, malware that asks the Qwen 2.5-Coder language model to generate commands from a description and then runs them; the attack is linked to APT28 with moderate confidenceCybersecurity · Geopolitics & defense · Moving target defense · cert.gov.ua ↗
- CNAS: AI chip smuggling into China has likely been occurring at a scale that significantly undermines US export controls; the median estimate is about 140,000 chips in 2024Geopolitics & defense · Compute export controls · cnas.org ↗
- Epoch AI: in May 2025 the US accounts for about three quarters of the performance of the world's tracked GPU clusters, China for 15%Geopolitics & defense · Science · Compute export controls · epoch.ai ↗
- Jensen Huang: US policy was based on the assumption that China cannot make AI chips, and “now it's clearly wrong”; the $50 billion China market is effectively closed to US companiesBusiness & markets · Geopolitics & defense · Compute export controls · allmind.ai ↗
- Anthropic activates ASL-3 protections for the first time, for Claude Opus 4 as a precaution, without having determined whether the threshold was crossedCybersecurity · Geopolitics & defense · AI safety · anthropic.com ↗
- The US informs NVIDIA that a license to export the H20 to China is required for the indefinite future; the company expects up to $5.5 billion in chargesGeopolitics & defense · Business & markets · Compute export controls · sec.gov ↗
- China introduces export controls on 7 medium and heavy rare earth metals, including magnetsGeopolitics & defense · Industry & robots · Compute export controls · mofcom.gov.cn ↗
- The UK renames the AI Safety Institute the AI Security Institute, with a focus on national security threats; in June 2025 the US turns its institute into the Center for AI Standards and InnovationGeopolitics & defense · Laws & regulation · AI regulation · gov.uk ↗
- The first International AI Safety Report is published: 96 experts led by Yoshua BengioScience · Geopolitics & defense · AI safety · internationalaisafetyreport.org ↗
- The US adopts the AI diffusion rule: licenses for AI chips with countries divided into three tiers, and controls on the weights of models trained with 10^26 operations or more; in May 2025 the new administration announces its rescissionGeopolitics & defense · Laws & regulation · Compute export controls · bis.gov ↗
- Dario Amodei after the release of DeepSeek: export controls are “actually working and adapting”, loopholes must be closed faster, and the H20 should be bannedGeopolitics & defense · Compute export controls · darioamodei.com ↗
- China bans in principle the export of gallium, germanium, antimony and superhard materials to the USGeopolitics & defense · Industry & robots · Compute export controls · cn.chinadaily.com.cn ↗
- BIS introduces export controls on HBM memory and 24 more types of chipmaking equipment, and adds 140 entities to the Entity ListGeopolitics & defense · Laws & regulation · Compute export controls · bis.gov ↗
- Bletchley Park summit: 28 countries and the EU, including the US and China, adopt a declaration on the risks of frontier AI; on 2 November the UK launches the first government AI safety instituteGeopolitics & defense · Laws & regulation · AI regulation · gov.uk ↗
- BIS closes the loophole for the cut-down A800 and H800 chips by introducing a performance density threshold; for NVIDIA the ban takes effect immediately, from 23 October 2023Geopolitics & defense · Laws & regulation · Compute export controls · bis.gov ↗
- China introduces export controls on gallium and germanium from 1 August 2023Geopolitics & defense · Industry & robots · Compute export controls · mofcom.gov.cn ↗
- Center for AI Safety: mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside pandemics and nuclear war; signatories include Hinton, Bengio and the heads of OpenAI, Google DeepMind and AnthropicScience · Geopolitics & defense · AI safety · safe.ai ↗
- Eliezer Yudkowsky in TIME: a pause is not enough, the most likely result of building a superhumanly smart AI is that everyone on Earth will die; “Shut it all down”Media & information · Geopolitics & defense · AI safety · time.com ↗
- The US Commerce Department's BIS restricts sales to China of advanced AI chips and semiconductor manufacturing equipmentGeopolitics & defense · Laws & regulation · Compute export controls · bis.gov ↗
- The US government informs NVIDIA that exports of the A100 and H100 to China, Hong Kong and Russia now require a licenseGeopolitics & defense · Business & markets · Compute export controls · sec.gov ↗
- The US Commerce Department expands the foreign direct product rule against Huawei: a license is also needed for chips made abroad using American technology; another 38 affiliates are added to the Entity ListGeopolitics & defense · Business & markets · Compute export controls · content.govdelivery.com ↗
- The US adds Huawei and 68 of its foreign affiliates to the Entity ListGeopolitics & defense · Business & markets · Compute export controls · govinfo.gov ↗
- The US adds the Chinese military university NUDT and three national supercomputing centers to the Entity List: according to the authorities, the Tianhe supercomputers were believed to be used in nuclear explosive activitiesGeopolitics & defense · Compute export controls · govinfo.gov ↗
- DARPA Urban Challenge: self-driving vehicles complete an urban courseTransport & logistics · Geopolitics & defense · Self-driving cars · cmu.edu ↗
- DARPA Grand Challenge: no self-driving vehicle completes the courseTransport & logistics · Geopolitics & defense · Self-driving cars · en.wikipedia.org ↗