Dario Amodei says a single decision in Washington about AI chips could undermine America’s standing as the most powerful nation on the planet.
In a panel discussion at Axios’ AI+ DC Summit 2025, the Anthropic CEO says US leadership in advanced chips is directly tied to the future of democracy and economic power.
He says that the one who wins the AI race could control the fate of nations, noting that it is “completely nuts” for the US to sell Nvidia chips to China.
“And if we look at all the ingredients, China has many of them better than we do. They’re better at building energy. They’re better at building data centers. They have a thriving app ecosystem on the models. Chips are the one place where they are behind. And so if we give them those chips, they will be able to get ahead of us.”
He points to DeepSeek as a case study.
“DeepSeek released their model, R1, back in January. They aim to release an R2 that was much better in May. That has been delayed for four months. And the model that they did release, V3.1, was considered a disappointment, was considered a minor update… The reason for the delay was the embargo on chips.”
Amodei highlights that export controls on advanced chips have created a rare edge for the United States.
“It may be the only advantage we have because we’re so far behind on things like munitions, shipbuilding. This is the only advantage we have. It is mortgaging our future as a country to sell these chips to China. If we were to do this, I think, and it sounds like some folks are considering it, I think it could be the single most disastrous national security decision made in this term.”
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