Cybersecurity Policy Report, Commerce Department’s AI Leadership Gap Creates Cyber Risks, Rep. Khanna Says, (Aug 18, 2026)

By Tom Leithauser

The lack of a permanent leader at the Commerce Department’s Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI) risks undermining the federal government’s ability to counter threats posed by cyber-capable AI (artificial intelligence) models being developed in China, according to Rep. Ro Khanna (D., Calif.), ranking member of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.

In a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Rep. Khanna noted that one CAISI director “was ousted just four days into his tenure,” while another quit after three months.

Arvind Raman, director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, where CAISI is housed, recently took over as the institute’s acting director, Rep. Khanna said, but “reporting indicates that it will still be several weeks before a new permanent Director is nominated.”

“This delay is dangerous,” he told Secretary Lutnick, given the “unprecedented recent developments” in AI development by the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

“In late July, Moonshot AI's new Kimi K3 model, the PRC’s most complex AI model to date, was released. A July evaluation conducted between CAISI and the United Kingdom’s AI Security Institute (AISI) found that Kimi K3’s ‘safeguards did not prevent it from attempting cyber exploit development or offensive cyber operations during UK AISI/CAISI's evaluations,’” he said.

“Then, in August, this very same model escaped a testing environment and made its way onto the open internet. In the words of the researcher who reported these findings, ‘Kimi K3 is very good at following a goal by any means necessary and also doesn’t have the guardrails to prevent it from cheating or escaping the sandbox,’” Rep. Khanna said.

“CAISI cannot be without a leader amid this critical moment in PRC model development. While the PRC’s advances would pose challenges for the U.S. Government under any circumstances, the situation is undoubtably far riskier due to CAISI’s lack of a permanent director,” he added.

He asked Secretary Lutnick to respond by Sept. 1 with information about the department’s plans for CAISI and how it intends to respond to threats from PRC-developed AI models.

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