On the "Why now", Dylan Patel from SemiAnalysis, the most prestige American Semiconductor industry research and analysis firm (who broke the Google DeepAI we have no moat neither does OpenAI in 2023) has the direct answer:

    It’s Likely Worse Than We Thought
    So, if we had to say “why now,” it’s likely to remove opposition to an extremely hawkish China export control bill: 
    after a large shift in Congress and heading into a lame duck session, it’s best to get your opposition out of the way to 
    get the bill passed. That is our best conspiracy theory take on the situation, and it lines up with the ripples from 
    Washington. So now let’s return to our original question.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50488931