'Like Selling Nuclear Weapons To North Korea': Anthropic CEO On Chip Exports To China

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has called out US President Donald Trump's decision to allow the sale of artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday, Amodei said selling the chips to China was like "selling nuclear weapons to North Korea".

“It would be a big mistake to ship these chips. I think this is crazy. It's a bit like selling nuclear weapons to North Korea," Amodei was quoted as saying by Bloomberg.

The Trump administration last week approved sales of Nvidia's second-most powerful AI chips to China last week. Under Biden-era restrictions, the H200 and similar advanced chips were blocked from export to China.

Trump, however, criticised his predecessor's approach, saying it "forced our great companies to spend billions of dollars building 'degraded' products that nobody wanted, a terrible idea that slowed Innovation, and hurt the American Worker".

"I wouldn't refer to any particular people but I would just say that this particular policy is not well advised," said Amodei, deftly avoiding blaming Trump loyalists who have backed the move.

Leading AI firms like Anthropic are competing to achieve Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), or human-level reasoning. Although the US currently maintains a significant lead over rivals like China, industry leaders like Amodei warn that exporting advanced semiconductors could narrow this competitive gap.

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Amodei On AI's Future

Amodei has previously warned that AI could wipe out half of the entry-level white-collar jobs within the next five years. He said the technology was already very good at entry-level work and "quickly getting better now".

"Specifically, if we look at jobs like entry-level white, you know, I think of people who work at law firms, like first-year associates, there's a lot of document review. It's very repetitive, but every example is different. That's something that AI is quite good at," said Amodei.

He added that governments across the world were downplaying the threat when AI's rising use could lead to a significant spike in unemployment numbers.

"We, as the producers of this technology, have a duty and an obligation to be honest about what is coming. I don't think this is on people's radar."