Sudo-Nym 🇺🇸 🇺🇦🌻🏴‍☠️

It is beyond inappropriate that leadership at the Department of Commerce apparently discussed an ongoing law enforcement investigation involving Megaspeed and Nvidia with Nvidia's General Counsel. It's clear that Congressional oversight is urgently needed here. To give an idea how bad this is: imagine if FBI agents were in the middle of a secret, long-running criminal investigation into a company, and FBI leadership discussed the status of that investigation with the General Counsel of the target company's primary business partner. That is no different than what apparently happened here. Law enforcement agencies (which include the Department of Commerce) cannot discuss ongoing investigations, and particularly not with companies directly or indirectly involved with cases. Everything about the way Commerce has handled Megaspeed's dealing with Nvidia is suspect. Commerce has shielded Megaspeed from regulatory action at every turn, and may have shielded Megaspeed from legal action as well. Now we know the reason why the Department of Commerce has still not blocked Megaspeed from receiving Nvidia chips: because the investigation inside Commerce into Megaspeed was halted entirely after Commerce communicated directly with Nvidia about it. And don't forget, the reason this happened is because Commerce is refusing to enforce EXISTING U.S. export controls, which would have prevented this. Current US export control regulations actually require Megaspeed, and any other non-trusted company in many countries, to get an export license from the Department of Commerce before they receive any large orders of AI chips. But Commerce publicly stated it will not enforce those regulations, and also has not bothered to replace them. Commerce could take action today to systematically solve this issue. It should: (1) immediately enforce the existing export control regulations that would require licenses for large AI chip shipments to non-trusted entities in Southeast Asia and other countries, such as Megaspeed; and (2) close obviously loopholes in controls that permit companies like Megaspeed to provide remote access of AI chips to China, or Chinese companies like Aivres (which is the US subsiary of the Entity Listed company Inspur, and provided Megaspeed with many of its Nvidia chips) to buy AI chips in the United States. Every day these loopholes persist, Congress must demand answers. Commerce's non-enforcement of export controls has metastasized into a major scandal, involving one of the largest companies in the world. Congress must prioritize this oversight, and it should be bipartisan. And Congress should immediately pass the many bipartisan bills that would tighten export controls and that are currently pending, such as the AI Overwatch Act, MATCH Act, Chip Security Act. These bills can't afford to wait, they should go today.