H.R. 8283: Deterring American AI Model Theft Act of 2026

H.R. 8283, the Deterring American AI Model Theft Act of 2026, builds a federal process to spot, name, and punish foreign actors that try to clone American closed-source AI models.

First, the targets. A "closed-source AI model" is one whose core technical details — like the model weights needed to recreate it — stay private, where access runs through an API or app the owner controls, and where outsiders can't host or modify the model themselves unless the owner says so. Think of the systems behind the major commercial chatbots, not open-weight models anyone can download.

The bill defines the attack it's chasing as a "model extraction attack": querying one of these models to replicate or train a competing model while dodging the owner's access controls, using fake credentials, or breaking the terms of service. Because intent is hard to prove, the bill says the government can infer it from the totality of circumstances — the volume and timing of queries, how tightly they cluster on specific capabilities, the use of many coordinated accounts, and whether the querying lines up with a rival's model-development timeline. The bill is careful to carve out legitimate research that follows the owner's terms.

Then the machinery. The Secretary of State, the Secretary of Commerce, and the agencies on the Operating Committee for Export Policy get 180 days after enactment to finish an assessment: which foreign "entities of concern" are running these attacks, which are "fraudulent account network providers" selling them access, what methods they use, where their offices and data centers sit, and how many attacks hit in the prior two years. A report to Congress follows within 210 days, then annual updates for three years.

The State Department would also publish an "AI Model Extraction Attackers List" naming people and companies found to have run or directed attacks in the past year. Names could stay on a public State Department website for up to five years.

The enforcement is the sharp end. Within 210 days, the Commerce Department's Under Secretary for Industry and Security must decide, by majority vote of the End-User Review Committee, whether identified attackers — or affiliates owned 50 percent or more, directly or indirectly — go on the Bureau of Industry and Security's Entity List, the export blacklist. Separately, the President may block all transactions in U.S.-based property of entities of concern. There are carve-outs for the 1947 UN Headquarters Agreement, for humanitarian aid like food, medicine, and medical devices, and for authorized intelligence, law enforcement, and national security work. Violations carry the existing civil and criminal penalties under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.