The U.S. Commerce Department has implemented new export controls on some laboratory instruments, citing national security concerns regarding artificial intelligence (AI) and data science.
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) announced in a statement on Jan. 15 that the latest export controls apply to high-parameter and spectral flow cytometers and certain liquid chromatography-mass spectrometers.
The bureau said the equipment is generally used for innovation in health, food, and agriculture, but it can also be misused by “countries of concern” to develop weapons.
“This misuse includes training artificial intelligence systems for the development of certain militarily relevant applications, including as well as but not limited to human performance enhancement, brain-machine interfaces, biologically-inspired synthetic materials, and possibly biological weapons,” the BIS said….