The Vandenberg Coalition endorses the bicameral, bipartisan Multilateral Alignment of Technology Controls on Hardware (MATCH) Act and calls on Congress to swiftly act to pass this legislation into law. For decades, the Chinese Communist Party has conducted a massive campaign to steal American technology in order to fuel China’s economic growth and improve its military capabilities. Now, China is trying to get its hands on American chipmaking technology to erase our critical AI advantage, including exploiting a gap in our export controls. While American chipmaking tool companies are restricted from selling to China, companies from American allies like the Netherlands and Japan currently do not have matching restrictions, which allows them to sell and service tools to China that contain advanced American technology. 

The MATCH Act plugs this gap by requiring U.S. allies to implement matching restrictions within 150 days or be subject to tighter restrictions themselves. This commonsense legislation, led by Representative Michael Baumgartner (R-WA) and Senator Pete Ricketts (R-NE), levels the playing field for American companies and protects America’s critical chipmaking advantage. In particular, the MATCH Act would block China from acquiring and receiving services on deep ultraviolet immersion (DUV) lithography machines from the Netherlands, a chipmaking tool critical to China’s ability to manufacture advanced chips. 

Protecting America’s security, freedom, and prosperity in the coming decades will require the United States to maintain its AI superiority. The MATCH Act is an important step towards ensuring China cannot exploit American technology to improve its AI capabilities.