Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has sharply criticised US President Donald Trump’s move to permit the sale of US-made AI chips to China, warning that the decision poses serious national security risks.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum 2026 in Davos, during the session ‘The Day After AGI’, Amodei questioned the idea that selling US-made chips abroad strengthens American influence by embedding its technology stack globally.
Amodei compared the policy to “selling nuclear weapons to North Korea,” arguing that it could significantly narrow the technological gap between the US and China.
Amodei said the United States currently holds a multi-year lead over China in advanced chipmaking and AI infrastructure, a position he believes could be undermined if cutting-edge hardware is exported.
“Sending those chips over could help China catch up faster than people expect,” he said, speaking in an interview with Bloomberg.
Describing the strategic stakes of AI development, Amodei warned that the technology could soon enable unprecedented levels of intelligence concentrated within data centres. “Imagine 100 million people smarter than any Nobel Prize winner,” he said. “That power is going to sit under the control of one country or another.”
Amodei said AI should not be treated like older technologies such as telecoms. He argued that while spreading US tech abroad may make sense in areas like network equipment or data centres, AI is far more powerful and carries much bigger consequences, making that approach risky.
“As I understand it, the logic is we need to sell them chips because we need to bind them into US supply chains,” he said. But, he added, the issue goes beyond timing or commercial advantage and cuts to the core importance of AI itself.
While Amodei has repeatedly voiced concern over the US administration’s broader AI and chip strategy, he has sought to avoid directly personalising the dispute.
The debate has intensified after rule changes opened the door for some advanced AI chips—such as NVIDIA’s H200 and AMD’s MI325X—to be sold to China. The US Bureau of Industry and Security recently updated the licensing rules that control these exports.
Trump later said his administration plans to put a 25% tariff on AI chips sent to China, including those made by Nvidia and AMD. The move adds more uncertainty for US chip companies already dealing with rising tensions between Washington and Beijing.
