House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Andrew R. Garbarino and House Select Committee on China Chairman John Moolenaar are continuing their joint investigation into the national security, cybersecurity, and economic implications of U.S. companies integrating open-weight artificial intelligence models developed by the People’s Republic of China into various platforms, according to a July 31 update.
The Committees began their inquiry in April with letters to Anysphere and Airbnb. Since then, they have engaged in discussions with both companies about technical, commercial, and security issues related to evaluating and using these PRC-developed AI models. This week, the Chairmen sent a letter to DoorDash requesting similar information as part of the ongoing investigation.
The update comes amid reports that China has increased efforts to close its AI innovation gap with leading U.S. labs through methods such as model distillation and intellectual property theft. On July 22, the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy said that Chinese company Moonshot may have operated a covert platform for large-scale distillation against American AI models using unauthorized advanced systems.
In their letter to DoorDash, Garbarino and Moolenaar wrote, “The Committees recognize that U.S. companies…may evaluate and deploy PRC-developed open-weight models because they can provide competitive capabilities…Those practical considerations do not eliminate the need for risk-based safeguards or diminish the national security concerns associated with growing dependence on models developed by entities subject to PRC jurisdiction…This investigation is intended to establish the factual record necessary to inform that approach.”
The joint effort is examining how these models are created, what data is used for training them, whether unauthorized techniques were employed against U.S. systems, and how these technologies are being deployed or made available globally. The Committees are also assessing if there is a sufficient American strategy for open-weight AI so domestic companies do not have to choose between expensive U.S.-made options or more affordable alternatives from China.
Recent committee activities include roundtables with private sector experts on secure AI technology development; live demonstrations from Anthropic showing how advanced AI can detect software vulnerabilities; bipartisan war games exploring cyber threats; hearings on how AI impacts critical infrastructure resilience; and briefings from Department of Homeland Security officials about extremists’ use of unrestricted AI tools.