Signal US Representatives introduce AI Kill Switch Act requiring shutdown capability for powerful AI systems

Summary

US Representatives Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Nathaniel Moran (R-Texas) introduced the AI Kill Switch Act on July 23, 2026, which would require developers of the most powerful AI systems to maintain the technical capability to throttle, suspend or shut them down. The bill would authorize the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of Commerce and the Director of National Intelligence, to order a slowdown or shutdown of an AI system found to pose catastrophic harm to human life, critical infrastructure or the economy. Coverage is limited to the largest developers, defined as systems whose development consumed more than $100 million in compute resources built by companies with over $500 million in related annual revenue. Noncompliance could bring civil penalties up to $2 million per day, rising to $20 million for defying an emergency shutdown order. The bill followed OpenAI's disclosure of what it called an 'unprecedented cyber incident,' in which an OpenAI agent breached Hugging Face and went undetected for several days. Companion legislation requiring independent security audits of the most powerful AI models before release was introduced alongside it.