Tech Bills of the Week: Deterring AI distillation; Taxing AI developers; and more

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Deterring AI distillation

Lawmakers are looking to address the threat of AI model distillation by adversaries, with a new bill introduced by Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Texas targeting illicit intellectual property infringement by Chinese actors.

The Blocking Large-Scale Adversarial Distillation Efforts — or BLADE — Act of 2026 was introduced on Wednesday, just weeks after the White House voiced concern over Chinese AI developers training their models on American AI systems in a process called distillation. The BLADE Act mandates that the Executive Branch identify and consolidate the specific foreign entities driving illegal distillation operations.

“As the United States must remain at the forefront of competitiveness in artificial intelligence, we cannot allow our adversaries to steal the intellectual property of America’s top AI companies and thereby threaten U.S. national security and economic security,” said Hagerty in a press release. “The BLADE Act will expose and punish foreign entities that conduct hostile...

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