Sens. Banks and Schiff Introduce Bill to Help American AI Companies Combat Chinese Espionage

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, Senators Jim Banks (R-Ind.) and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) introduced the bipartisan Collaboration on Adversarial Threats and Security Risks Act, legislation to help American artificial intelligence companies work together to defend against espionage by Communist China and other serious national security threats.

As American companies race to advance Artificial Intelligence systems, foreign adversaries are increasingly attempting to steal U.S. technology through cyber-attacks, model theft, and 'distillation' attacks that replicate advanced AI models at a fraction of the cost. While existing laws allow companies to share information about cyber threats, there is no comparable legal framework allowing AI developers to coordinate against emerging AI-specific security risks.

The Collaboration on Adversarial Threats and Security Risks Act creates a narrowly tailored antitrust safe harbor allowing AI companies to share threat information and coordinate defensive measures in good faith to address defined national security risks while preserving existing antitrust protections against price-fixing, monopolization, and other anticompetitive conduct.

Sen. Jim Banks (R-Ind.): "The AI race is one that America can't afford to lose. Communist China is working every day to steal our technology and close the gap with the United States. American AI companies must be able to collaboratively defend against our adversaries. The bill gives them the tools to protect America's technological edge and helps ensure we maintain our competitive edge."

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.): "We cannot allow China, or any foreign adversary, to steal American technological advancements in AI, and then weaponize those advances to undermine our own national security. The solution we are proposing would protect against AI distillation attacks and other security risks by allowing increased information-sharing among U.S. AI labs to counter the threat of foreign theft. As new AI innovations are developing faster than ever, it's critical that Republicans and Democrats continue to work together to address potential misuse of AI development by hostile actors at home and abroad."

Key Provisions of Collaboration on Adversarial Threats and Security Risks:

The legislation allows AI developers to collaborate to identify, assess, prevent, investigate, and mitigate defined AI security risks including:

• Preventing the theft, distillation, weaponization, or misuse of advanced American AI models by foreign adversaries.
• Sharing information on cybersecurity vulnerabilities, unauthorized access, and attacks targeting frontier AI systems.
• Addressing AI-enabled chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and offensive cyber threats.
• Coordinating responses to risks involving loss of operational control over advanced AI systems.

The legislation includes strict guardrails to ensure these protections cannot be used to undermine competition. It explicitly prohibits price-fixing, market allocation, monopolization, boycotts, or any other anticompetitive conduct unrelated to legitimate AI security and national security threats.

Background:

The legislation responds to growing evidence that foreign adversaries are conducting industrial-scale efforts to steal America's most advanced AI capabilities. According to public reports, Chinese actors have used tens of thousands of fraudulent accounts to extract millions of interactions from leading U.S. AI systems in an effort to replicate frontier models. The White House has also warned that China is conducting deliberate campaigns to distill advanced American AI systems.

The bill has bipartisan, bicameral support and is supported by a broad coalition of organizations and experts.

"Building on the proven foundation of CISA 2015, the Collaboration on Adversarial Threats and Security Risks Act brings a strengthened threat-sharing framework into the AI era. Protecting critical infrastructure and cutting-edge AI systems requires real-time coordination against sophisticated security threats. This bill strikes a vital balance: empowering tech leaders to collaborate on cyber, CBRN, loss-of-control, and foreign adversarial risks while maintaining strong antitrust protections." - Paul Lekas, Executive VP for Global Public Policy & Government Affairs, Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA).

"This bipartisan bill gives the AI industry clear rules of the road to share threat intelligence and collaborate on much-needed standard and benchmarks. We appreciate the leadership of Senators Schiff and Banks and Representatives Whiteside and Latta in working to ensure the continued responsible development of frontier models." - John Connell, VP of Government Affairs and Public Policy, Google.

"The benefits of the CATS Act extend far beyond AI tech companies. By removing antitrust barriers to sharing critical information about adversarial AI threats, this legislation directly protects downstream critical infrastructure. For Health-ISAC and the health sector, this means safeguarding national public health and patient safety from emerging security risks and ultimately keeping Americans safer." - Denise Anderson, President & CEO, Health-ISAC.

"Antitrust law was never meant to stop American AI companies from collaborating on security. This commonsense policy would give American AI developers the legal clarity they need to share threat intelligence and security best practices while preserving enforcement against genuine anticompetitive conduct. It's a reform that strengthens American innovation and puts our national security first." - Yusuf Mahmood, Policy Director, America First Policy Institute.

"Making America AI-ready means making institutions more resilient and equipped to respond to AI security risks. Giving companies a clear, lawful path to share threat information raises the security floor for the whole country while advancing American leadership in AI." - Joshua New, Director of Policy, SeedAI.

"The worst AI security threats - a foreign adversary stealing a frontier model, a serious loss of control - won't be contained to a single company. Developers need to be able to share threat information and coordinate, and this bill lets them do that. When companies can coordinate on threats without legal risk, they lose the excuse for staying silent, and the public is safer for it." - Sunny Gandhi, Co-Executive Director, Encode AI.

"We urgently need legislation that lets frontier AI developers collaborate on national security risks, such as adversarial distillation, without being deterred by uncertainties regarding antitrust law. The Collaboration on Adversarial Threats and AI Security Risks Act would provide targeted protections paired with appropriate guardrails against misuse." - Tim Schnabel, President, Law Reform Institute.

"AI developers are confronting increasingly sophisticated threats involving model theft, unauthorized access, critical infrastructure, and other serious security risks. The Collaboration on Adversarial Threats and Security Risks Act would extend existing protections to information sharing and coordination around AI-specific threats, promoting real-time situational awareness among frontier labs and other AI developers. Importantly, the bill includes safeguards to ensure this protection is limited to good-faith security collaboration and does not excuse anticompetitive conduct." - Morgan Reed, President, Association for Competitive Technology (ACT).

"I commend Senators Schiff and Banks for their bipartisan legislation. The Collaboration on Adversarial Threats and Strategic Risks Act improves the speed at which national security risks arising from adversarial espionage and autonomous improvement of artificial intelligence models can be identified and addressed." - Mark Beall, President, AI Policy Network.

"Advanced AI systems could be exploited by foreign adversaries, used to develop biological or cyber weapons, threaten critical infrastructure, or operate beyond meaningful human control. The Collaboration on Adversarial Threats and Security Risks Act is a common sense step that will help America's leading AI companies work together to identify and reduce these risks before they become an emergency," - Brendan Steinhauser, CEO, The Alliance for Secure AI.

"As advanced AI systems increasingly become prime targets for espionage and theft by bad actors and global competitors, AI companies need a secure way to share threat information and coordinate defenses without risking antitrust violations. The Collaboration on Adversarial Threats and Security Risks Act would create a narrow exemption for companies to rely on, while keeping safeguards against price fixing, market allocation, and other anti-competitive behavior fully intact. By strengthening companies' ability to detect and respond to these risks, this bill will help keep Americans protected from the real-world harms posed by compromised AI systems. The Center for AI Safety Action Fund is proud to support this bill." - Varun Krovi, Executive Director, Center for AI Safety Action Fund.

"America's technology leadership is increasingly jeopardized by the inability of our frontier AI companies to coordinate on issues core to U.S. national security, from countering foreign espionage to cybersecurity information sharing. This bill provides the legal clarity needed for industry to collaborate on urgent AI security threats without undermining market competition." - Samuel Hammond, Director of Artificial Intelligence & Chief Economist, the Foundation for American Innovation.

"As AI capabilities accelerate, so do the threats posed by foreign adversaries and malicious actors. Representative Latta's bill removes unnecessary barriers to responsible collaboration, allowing companies to share critical security information in good faith to address covered AI risks. America's AI leadership depends not only on innovation, but on ensuring our innovators can work together to defend the technologies that are essential to our economic and national security." - Janet Kelly, CEO, Alliance for a Better Future.

"The Chinese Communist Party is actively seeking to close the AI gap through espionage and distillation of our most advanced AI models. American AI developers should not fear violating antitrust laws for collaborating to defend against those threats. This bill takes a commonsense step toward protecting U.S. technological leadership and preventing America's most advanced AI systems from becoming tools of our adversaries." - Autumn Dorsey, Center for Technology and the Human Person, The Heritage Foundation.

"The evidence is increasingly clear. AI companies in the U.S. are facing targeted attacks from PRC-aligned companies. Yet, existing antitrust law can discourage them from coordinating their defenses. A narrow, carefully tailored exemption would give responsible AI companies the confidence to share information and work together on serious threats without running afoul of competition law." - Will Rinehart, Senior Fellow, AEI.

"Senator Banks' Collaboration on Adversarial Threats and Securities Risks Act strikes the right balance between important AI security research collaboration and antitrust risk. While information sharing between rivals can create competition risk, the exemption in this bill is well crafted to minimize this concern while ensuring that AI labs are able to coordinate their defenses against our geopolitical adversaries." - Gale Slater, Competition and Technology Policy Chair, American Compass.

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