OpenAI goes quiet on China chip curbs, siding with Nvidia and Trump as Anthropic keeps fighting for them
What's going on? OpenAI has stopped pressing US lawmakers for strict limits on sales of advanced AI chips to China, Politico reported on 20 Oct 2026, citing Capitol Hill aides and lobbyists with direct knowledge of the company's positioning. For much of 2025 the company openly backed such curbs. "OpenAI's officials were with us on this and now their position is a bit more fuzzy," one congressional aide said. "Silence is doing Nvidia's work for it." A lobbyist put it more bluntly: "They got the message. There is no appetite to challenge the president at this moment."
Why now? China hawks in Congress want to attach new chip restrictions to the annual defense bill (NDAA) during the lame-duck session after the midterms, and had counted on OpenAI as a prominent industry ally. Three bills are in play: the AI OVERWATCH Act (congressional review of export licences for advanced chips to countries of concern), the Chip Security Act (tracking exported AI chips to stop smuggling) and the MATCH Act (pushing allies to restrict sales of chipmaking tools to China).
The bigger picture: the AI labs have split over chips. Anthropic backs all three bills. In September it quit the Information Technology Industry Council, whose members include Google, OpenAI and Nvidia, after the trade group asked Congress to strip the bills from the defense package. OpenAI, meanwhile, has moved ever closer to its main supplier: according to TNW, Nvidia finalised a $30bn equity investment in OpenAI in February and in August agreed to be the sole chip supplier for an Ohio data centre OpenAI will lease, guaranteeing up to $105bn for its first phase. Nvidia, which is fighting the proposals, and a White House that wants US firms to sell more chips abroad are the clear winners. The shift lands a day after the US ordered federal agencies to remove DeepSeek products, and while Chinese tech giants keep ordering billions of dollars of Nvidia chips that current rules still allow.
What's confirmed and what isn't: The report rests on unnamed sources, and nothing has been formally withdrawn. A review of OpenAI's policy papers by The Hum found no document asking to loosen controls on China, but a clear softening of tone: in March 2025 OpenAI asked the White House to keep China subject to "strict export controls", including on advanced chips, while its June 2026 federal-framework paper only said policymakers should "strengthen export controls, close known loopholes", without naming China. An OpenAI spokesperson said that "US labs having a substantial lead in advanced chips is key" and that "effective export control policies are one part of that broader strategy." Nvidia declined to comment, and a White House official disputed that the administration has eased the rules.
Sources: Politico / TNW / Axios (Anthropic leaves ITI) / The Hum (OpenAI policy papers)
