SCALE Act

The SCALE Act aims to limit the ability of foreign adversaries, such as China and Russia, to acquire advanced artificial intelligence (AI) hardware. It requires the U.S. government to establish metrics for assessing the AI hardware capabilities of these countries and their associated entities. Based on these assessments, the Commerce Department must set annual export limits for AI hardware, generally denying licenses that exceed these thresholds or would allow adversaries to accumulate more than 5% of the U.S.'s total AI hardware capacity. The bill also imposes strict conditions on any approved exports, including independent verification of hardware capabilities and prohibitions against military or unauthorized remote access.