Biden Administration to Introduce "Know Your Customer" Regulations for Cloud Companies

 

Biden Administration to Introduce "Know Your Customer" Regulations for Cloud Companies

The Biden administration, through U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, is set to propose regulations aimed at enhancing security in the cloud computing sector, specifically addressing concerns related to the access of U.S. clouds for training artificial intelligence (AI) models. The upcoming "know your customer" regulation is anticipated to be unveiled as early as next week.

Raimondo emphasized the need to prevent non-state actors, China, or undesirable entities from accessing U.S. clouds to train AI models. The proposed regulation would place the responsibility on U.S. cloud computing companies to identify and disclose information about their major customers involved in training large AI models. The objective is to safeguard against potential malicious activities and ensure the security of AI systems.

The Commerce secretary highlighted the importance of regulating access to cloud services, drawing parallels with existing measures like export controls on chips, which are integral to American cloud data centers. The proposed regulation aligns with President Joe Biden's executive order from October, which mandates developers of AI systems with potential risks to U.S. national security to share safety test results with the government before public release.

Raimondo revealed that the Department of Commerce is initiating the process of requiring U.S. cloud companies to inform authorities whenever a non-U.S. entity utilizes their cloud services for training substantial language models. Additionally, she mentioned that survey requests under the Defense Production Act (DPA) would soon be sent to companies, giving them 30 days to respond. 

The "know your customer" regulation is positioned as a significant step to enhance security and transparency in the evolving AI landscape, particularly within the cloud computing domain dominated by companies like Amazon's AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft's Azure unit.