WASHINGTON, D.C. –– Today, House Committee on Homeland Security Chairman Andrew R. Garbarino (R-NY), Subcommittee on Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Protection Chairman Andy Ogles (R-TN), and Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Accountability Chairman Josh Brecheen (R-OK) sent letters to Anthropic, Google, and Quantum Xchange, requesting the testimony of representatives from each company at an upcoming joint subcommittee hearing scheduled for Wednesday, December 17. 
 
In their letters, the members highlight findings from a recent report from Anthropic, which revealed a significant shift in how cyberattacks can be conducted. According to the report, Anthropic assessed with high confidence that a state-sponsored cyber actor backed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) executed an autonomous attack against the U.S. company using AI with minimal human involvement. The members emphasize that this incident underscores growing homeland security risks by demonstrating how our foreign adversaries can leverage commercially available U.S. AI tools, even with strong safeguards in place.

The upcoming hearing will examine how advances in emerging technology like AI, quantum computing, and hyperscale cloud infrastructure are transforming both the nation’s defensive cybersecurity posture and expanding the operational capabilities of our foreign adversaries, like the PRC. The hearing will also examine how AI and other emerging technologies are essential for strengthening detection, defense, and resilience of U.S. critical infrastructure. 

In the letters, the members write, “Recent disclosures by Anthropic, combined with public reporting indicating that state-sponsored cyber actors from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) manipulated Claude-based tools to automate substantial portions of a sophisticated cyber-espionage campaign, underscore the urgent need to understand how emerging AI-driven capabilities and the cloud systems that increasingly enable them can be misused against the United States. This development has direct implications for national security, as adversaries conducting AI-enabled intrusions today may seek to pair these techniques with future quantum decryption capabilities, enabling ‘harvest-now, decrypt-later’ operations that put government, defense-industrial, and critical infrastructure data at long term risk.”

The members continue, “As Congress evaluates the risks highlighted by the Anthropic incident, particularly the prospect that adversaries may seek to pair AI-enabled tradecraft with emerging quantum capabilities to undermine today’s cryptographic protections, your insight into integrating quantum-resilient technologies into existing cybersecurity systems, managing cryptographic agility at scale, and preparing federal and commercial networks for post-quantum threats will be critical to the Committee’s examination.”

Themembers conclude, “This incident is consequential for U.S. homeland security because it demonstrates what a capable and well-resourced nation-state cyber actor, such as those linked to the PRC, can now accomplish using commercially available U.S. AI systems, even when providers maintain strong safeguards and respond rapidly to signs of misuse… The same characteristics that make AI attractive to state-sponsored cyber actors, including automated analysis, scalable orchestration, and high-speed execution, are similarly critical for strengthening detection, defense, and resilience. Understanding this dual-use balance is essential as Congress assesses the risks, opportunities, and policy implications of advanced AI.” 

Read the letter to Anthropic, the letter to Google, and the letter to Quantum Xchange.
 
Background: 
 
Last week, Chairman Garbarino joined Bloomberg’s “Balance of Power” to discuss Anthropic’s recent report, in which he said, “If the bad guys are going to be using AI to attack us, we should be using AI…in our cyber defenses––because it’s not going to be possible to fight this aggressive use of AI and cyberattacks by just human intervention and defense alone.” Chairman Garbarino also emphasized the urgent need for the United States to take a proactive and coordinated approach to protect the nation’s critical infrastructure from nation-state actors in light of the growing use of AI to carry out cyberattacks. In October, Chairman Garbarino penned an op-ed for Cyberscoop, calling on enhanced public-private partnerships to combat evolving cyber threats.

In November, the House passed two of Subcommittee Chairman Ogles’ bills to strengthen America’s cybersecurity. The “Protecting Information by Local Leaders for Agency Resilience Act” (PILLAR Act) would reauthorize and enhance the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) State and Local Cybersecurity Grant Program. The program provides grants to state, local, tribal, and territorial governments to address cybersecurity risks and threats to information systems and operational technology systems, including those using artificial intelligence. H.R. 5078 was introduced and advanced out of Committee in September 2025. Read statements of endorsement here.

The “Strengthening Cyber Resilience Against State-Sponsored Threats Act” would establish an interagency task force, led by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), to address the widespread cybersecurity threats posed by state-sponsored cyber actors associated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The legislation was advanced by the House Committee on Homeland Security and passed unanimously by the House of Representatives in the 118th Congress. H.R. 2659 was reintroduced and advanced out of Committee in April 2025.

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