Washington has drafted regulations that would require companies to seek US government approval for virtually all exports of AI accelerators from Nvidia and AMD. The draft rule expands existing curbs beyond roughly 40 countries, positioning the Commerce Department as gatekeeper over global AI hardware shipments.

Under the proposal, shipments of up to 1,000 of the latest GPUs would undergo a streamlined review with exemptions, while deployments exceeding that threshold would need preclearance before licensing. Massive clusters—more than 200,000 GPUs—would trigger host-government involvement and stringent security commitments.

Google currently purchases AI accelerators by the thousands to power services like Gemini and other machine-learning workloads in its data centers. New export controls risk delaying or limiting chip deliveries, potentially slowing expansion of Google’s AI infrastructure and raising operational costs.

The licensing regime remains in draft form, with details such as investment ratios and approval processes still under debate. Google and other hyperscalers could face supply uncertainties while awaiting final rule issuance and may intensify lobbying to secure favorable terms.