The US House of Representatives has passed the Remote Access Security Act in an effort to further limit China’s access to US technology, such as AI chips.

The bill, which received bipartisan support, bolsters the Export Control Reform Act and allows federal authorities to restrict remote access to advanced technologies.

The legislation aims to close a loophole that has allowed Chinese companies to access sanctioned AI chips by buying or renting them for use on US soil. The loophole was first reported in 2024, when it was revealed that ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, had been renting advanced Nvidia chips from Oracle.

“The CCP’s AI ambitions are being fueled by its access to American chips housed in data centers located outside of China,” said John Moolenaar, chairman of the House Select Committee on China. “This bill brings our laws into the digital age and makes it clear that cloud compute is subject to US export control law, just like physical chips. Closing these loopholes will strengthen US national security and protect American innovation.”

Nvidia says no upfront payment from Chinese customers will be required

Less than a week after it was reported that Nvidia would require Chinese customers purchasing H200 GPUs to provide full, upfront payment in order to secure the hardware, the chip giant has said this is not company policy.

In a statement to Reuters, which first reported the original story, Nvidia said it “would never require customers to pay for products they do not receive.”

That same initial report claimed that, in addition to providing upfront payment in full, customers in China would also have no option to cancel, ask for refunds, or change configurations after placement.

In early December, Nvidia was granted permission by the Trump administration to sell H200s to “approved customers” in China and other countries under certain conditions, including a 25 percent export tax. However, it has since been reported that the Chinese government has asked tech companies in the country to pause orders for the GPUs while regulators decide the ratio of Chinese-made chips to H200s customers must purchase.

In August 2025, both Nvidia and AMD agreed to pay the US government 15 percent of the revenue generated from the sale of H20 and MI380 chips to China. Both chips are less powerful, export-compliant versions of existing chips developed by the respective companies, specifically designed for the Chinese market.