The SCALE Act is a bill sponsored by Rep. John Moolenaar (R-MI), chair of the House Select Committee on China, that ties permissible US AI-chip exports to China to the performance of China's own domestic chips rather than to a fixed compute ratio. It permits US chip exports to China only up to 110% of the performance of the best chip China can manufacture domestically at scale, replacing Moolenaar's earlier proposal to cap Chinese aggregate AI compute at 10% of US compute capacity.
Status and timeline
Moolenaar introduced the SCALE Act in the week of April 21, 2026. As of the most recent reporting it had been introduced with no floor action yet. The bill is presented as a replacement for an earlier Moolenaar proposal, which would have capped Chinese aggregate AI compute at 10% of US compute capacity; the earlier proposal's specific date and bill number are not stated in the source.
Scope and key provisions
The earlier Moolenaar proposal set a fixed-ratio quantitative ceiling, capping Chinese aggregate AI compute at 10% of US compute capacity. The SCALE Act substitutes a performance-relative threshold: US chip exports to China are permitted only up to 110% of the performance of the best chip China can manufacture domestically at scale. The change reframes the export-control test from a quantity-based measure to one indexed to China's own manufacturing capability.
The mechanism proceeds in three steps. First, the "best chip China can manufacture domestically at scale" is defined; per the source this likely involves a process-node, die-size, and memory-bandwidth assessment. Second, that performance figure is multiplied by 1.1 to set the 110% ceiling. Third, US export of chips at or below that performance level is allowed and export above it is prohibited. The stated intent is that as China improves the capabilities of its domestic producers such as Huawei Ascend and SMIC, the US export ceiling rises automatically with them, which is meant to prevent US controls from being trivially circumvented while preserving a fixed-ratio US technological lead.
Reactions
The source frames the performance-relative design as potentially working in the opposite direction from the Thompson chip-precariousness critique, in that it decouples US export levels from absolute capability targets. Possible objections raised include that a 110% ceiling would not translate to a meaningful capability gap if China is improving rapidly; that the "at scale" qualifier is open to gaming, leaving unclear whether pilot production counts and what volume threshold applies; and that performance-relative caps could give China an incentive to under-report domestic chip-capability progress in order to keep US chip flows higher.
Related
The SCALE Act sits alongside other AI export-control measures. BIS Framework for AI Diffusion — Interim Final Rule (RESCINDED) is the executive-branch counterpart on AI export controls, and Presidential Determination 2026-10 (Defense Production Act Section 303 — AI Grid Components) is a Section 303 invocation treating grid hardware as defense-essential. Export Controls (AI) is a planned concept page anchoring this debate.
Relationships
- related: John Moolenaar
- related: House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party
- related: Export Controls (AI)
- related: Nvidia & TSMC — AI Compute Infrastructure
- related: Huawei — Ascend AI Accelerators
- related: SMIC — Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation
- related: BIS Framework for AI Diffusion — Interim Final Rule (RESCINDED)
- related: AI Promise and Chip Precariousness — Ben Thompson (Stratechery, February 2025)
- supersedes: Moolenaar's earlier "10% cap" proposal (introduced earlier in 2026; specific date and bill number not stated in source)