The US government has forced a venture capital firm under Saudi Aramco to sell its stake in an artificial intelligence (AI) chip startup in Silicon Valley.

This startup is called Rainwater Neurology Company, and its shareholders include Sam Altman, co-founder of the Open Artificial Intelligence Research Center (OpenAI) in the United States.

Rainwater Neurology Company is a chip design company that provides services for artificial intelligence algorithms by simulating the workings of the brain. In 2022, it raised $25 million and was led by the Saudi Aramco Prosperity 7 Fund.

Insiders have disclosed to Bloomberg that at a certain point in the past year, after reviewing relevant financing matters, the US Foreign Investment Commission requested the "Prosperity 7" fund to sell its shares in "Rainwater Neurology Company", and the "Prosperity 7" fund followed suit.

Previously, the United States had taken measures to slow down the progress of artificial intelligence technology in the Middle East region. In August of this year, the US government expanded export restrictions on artificial intelligence chips from American chip companies Nvidia and Chaowei Semiconductor, restricting the export of such chips to some countries in the Middle East.

On October 24th, in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, attendees watched the opening ceremony at the venue of the 7th Saudi "Future Investment Initiative" conference.

The Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States is a regulatory agency that reviews transactions involving US national security and is under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Treasury.

The US Treasury Department responded that the agency is committed to taking "all necessary measures within its jurisdiction to maintain national security.".

It is worth noting that the newly formed board members of OpenAI include former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers.