S. 4456 — AI OVERWATCH Act

This section establishes a license requirement for exports of covered integrated circuits to countries of concern. It defines a covered integrated circuit to include those classified under ECCN 3A090 or 4A090 (or functionally equivalent products) or meeting any of four performance thresholds, such as total processing performance of 4,800 or more, total processing performance of 2,400 or more with performance density of 1.6 or more, total processing performance of 1,600 or more with performance density of 3.2 or more, or total DRAM bandwidth of 1,400 gigabytes per second or more combined with interconnect bandwidth of 1,100 gigabytes per second or more. It further defines a restricted integrated circuit as a covered integrated circuit meeting higher thresholds, such as total processing performance of 21,000 or more or total processing performance of 1,600 or more with performance density of 21 or more (or, for circuits first marketed after January 1, 2026, the lower covered thresholds). The section excludes circuits or products not designed or marketed for data center use and certain non-GPU microprocessors, authorizes the Under Secretary of Commerce for Industry and Security to update technical parameters after 24 months (subject to congressional consultation, interagency approval, and no adverse national security impact), and lists countries of concern as the People’s Republic of China (including Hong Kong and Macau), Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and other Country Group D:5 nations designated by the Secretary of State.