WASHINGTON, March 28, 2023 – Senator Mark Warner, D-Virginia, said Thursday that Congress needs to do more to ensure a fund intended to replace technologies in the country’s communications networks deemed a national security risk is replenished.

“We need more,” Warner said, responding to a question during his keynote speech at an event hosted by law firm Hogan Lovells about open radio access networks. Warner is the chair of the Senate select committee on intelligence and subcommittee on national security, and is a member of the budget committee and global competitiveness.

“[I’m] trying to make sure that that becomes enough of a priority,” Warner added. “We need to do it.”

The Federal Communications Commission was granted $1.9 billion for the rip and replace program as required by the Secure Networks Act. The program is intended to reimburse providers for removing perceived problematic gear, largely from Chinese companies like Huawei and ZTE, from their networks.

But the FCC has already identified a roughly $3 billion shortfall in the funds because requests from applicants far exceeded the amounts available. In January, the commission said in a report that nearly half of respondents required to submit status reports on their replacement efforts complained about a lack of funding.

Industry associations, including the Competitive Carriers Association and the Rural Wireless Association, have raised the issue to the FCC for months. The fact that the omnibus spending bill didn’t include rip and replace funding apparently “stunned” the Telecommunications Industry Association.

Warner’s comments came during a discussion on open and interoperable radio access networks, or O-RAN, which experts and officials said would lead to better security for the country’s networks. O-RAN is expected to allow providers use different vendors in their radio networks instead of relying on proprietary technologies from specific companies.

Specifically, Warner touched on the National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s $1.5 billion Innovation Fund grant program, which is principally intended to promote open technologies and to seek alternatives to Chinese wireless products, which are attractive because of their relatively lower prices. The funds were provided by the Chips and Science Act of 2022.

But Warner warned that funding could get lost in other priorities.

“We need to make sure that this money is spent on O-RAN deployment and not simply cyber training under a different name, so I still got work to do with the administration,” Warner said. “I need your help and support on that,” he told the crowd of experts, which included global telecoms.

Warner said there needs to be more American company involvement in international standard-setting bodies, especially for O-RAN, so that there are existing alternatives to problematic company products.

He also said there needs to be more test sites for O-RAN, such as in India. “We need more markets to try this out,” he said of O-RAN.

“We need to push, both domestically and around the world, on more test beds to try out this technology as we see it rolled out…we need to test it.

“The [Chinese Communist Party] is not playing for second place.”

WASHINGTON, February 27, 2023 – China has no reason to retaliate against U.S. export controls because it might lead to more restrictions on products which would not be in the Chinese Communist Party’s interests, said the president of US-China Business Council at a web conference on Wednesday.

In October, the Commerce Department prohibited the exportation to China of certain high-functioning chips necessary for supercomputers and moved to prevent other countries from providing China with certain semiconductors made with American technology.

The Commerce Department also limited American citizens’ ability to work with Chinese chip facilities. The restrictions were billed as a national security imperative and designed to limit the development of next-generation, chip-dependent Chinese military technology.

At the same time, the U.S. raised concerns that China would retaliate.

“China has a good number of tools or legal tools, which they could retaliate, but that’s hard,” said Craig Allen, president of US-China Business Council, a non-profit that promotes trade between the two countries. “If they do retaliate, for example, against a chip company or manufacturing equipment company, a tool company, or another type of company, then that will lead to further restrictions on the inflow of technology and a product into China. And so, they have not found a way to retaliate, that suits their interest and I hope it stays that way.”

However, China also has remarkable speed and scale, Allen said. He considers China’s manufacturing speed and scale of accessing the market as “quite formidable.”

“Their dominance in the processing of rare earths, for example, is something that we should be concerned about,” according to Allen.

Other experts on the panel had similar opinions as well.

The most advanced artificial intelligence chips go into supercomputing and equipment for the production of semiconductors, according to Jimmy Goodrich, vice president of global policy at the Semiconductor Industry Association. The export control policy is limited to the “most cutting edge technology,” Goodrich said.

“The vast majority of chips don’t depend on and applications don’t depend on those advanced technologies,” said Goodrich. “Many of those are still unrestricted, because they’re ubiquitous, China has a lot more stronger domestic capability to produce them.”

But China may already be cognizant that development of chips is a globally integrated endeavor.

“It’s too complex, too global, too interdependent for one country to be able to produce all these technologies on their own,” Goodrich said, emphasizing the importance of multilateral approach. And that could be why, Goodrich added, China is hesitant to retaliate.

WASHINGTON, February 6, 2023 – Deputy Commerce Secretary Don Graves said an event late last month that the U.S. needs to build partnerships with other countries to tilt the balance in its favor against the technological influence of China.

“This is how we’re going to build U.S tech leadership, not with silver bullets, but step-by-step with government, business, educational institutions and communities all working together to create the conditions that will drive innovation, attract investment and grow quality middle class jobs,” said Graves at the Information Technology Industry Council’s tech and policy summit on January 31.

Graves addressed a concern that China has moved aggressively to establish a technological powerhouse “through massive government support for their own domestic industries, strategic use of capital to gain access to early stage, commercial tech” and allegedly through technology theft.

Graves said the Joe Biden administration understands the need for a different approach, a modern strategy that will focus on technology that provide innovation and job opportunities. He referred to a focus on computing-related technologies comprising chips, quantum and artificial intelligence and clean energy tech, that will reduce dependence on fossil fuels and protect against the costs of climate change.

The comments come after the House voted to establish a new committee to study the competitive landscape between China and the U.S. The Federal Communication Commission has already designated major Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE national security threats. In order to increase independence, President Biden has signed the Chips and Science Act into law in August last year that incentivizes the domestic manufacturing of key technologies, including semiconductors.

Sen. Todd Young, R-IN, one of the speakers at the event, called on Congress to be more united when it comes to the issues with China.

“We need to become more economically resilient,” Young said. “That means hardening our supply chains,” which he said can be done using the success of the Chips and Science Act.

“The administration’s theme that domestic policy is foreign policy is a good way to think about many things.”