US Lawmakers Propose Tracking Technology for Nvidia AI Chips to Combat Smuggling to China

Nvidia GPU tracking tech proposed by US lawmakers in smuggling crackdown

U.S. Congressman and physicist Bill Foster plans to introduce a bill that will require advanced AI chipmakers like Nvidia to include a built-in location reporting system. According to Reuters, this system will use existing and readily available technology to find the general country-level location of an AI chip. In fact, two sources say that Alphabet is using something similar to track the location of its in-house Tensor AI chips across all its data centers to protect against theft and other security breaches. The White House, under both the Biden and Trump administrations, has been enforcing bans against the export of advanced chips to China since 2022. It has been doing this to limit its rival's access to cutting-edge technology and help ensure the U.S.'s dominance in AI technology. Washington even recently expanded the export controls to include previously allowed chips like the MI308 and H20, resulting in an $800-million and $5.5-billion write-off for AMD and Nvidia, respectively. However, the bans and sanctions have been criticized for being ineffective, with the former U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo calling them "a fool's errand". We've had verified reports of Chinese businesses smuggling advanced chips into mainland China, and the company behind DeepSeek, one of China's most advanced AI models, is accused of using smuggled Nvidia AI chips. Even the U.S. Senate found that the Bureau of Security and Industry (BIS), the agency in charge of export controls, was sorely lacking in resources and relied on voluntary compliance from chipmakers. Rep. Foster's proposal aims to solve this issue by requiring AI chips to communicate with a secure computer server whenever they go online. According to the source, the time difference between when the chip sends the signal and when the server receives it is enough to determine its rough location. Reuters claims that independent technical experts say that the proposal by the congressman, who is a former particle physicist and has a doctorate in physics from Harvard University, is feasible and could potentially work. However, the Congressman from Illinois wants to go beyond that. He also wants the chips to stop booting if they detect that they do not have the proper export licenses. This would be significantly more technically challenging than just finding a chip's location, but the representative says that "we can have more detailed discussions with the actual chip and module providers" to know how to implement it. Requiring these technologies to be built into chips will likely get some pushback, especially when privacy is called into question. Nevertheless, this bill has reportedly bipartisan support, with representatives from both sides of the aisle supporting the concept.

Exclusive: US lawmaker targets Nvidia chip smuggling to China with new bill

SAN FRANCISCO, May 5 (Reuters) - A U.S. lawmaker plans to introduce legislation in coming weeks to verify the location of artificial-intelligence chips like those made by Nvidia after they are sold. The effort to keep tabs on the chips, which drew bipartisan support from U.S. lawmakers, aims to address reports of widespread smuggling of Nvidia's chips into China in violation of U.S. export control laws. Nvidia's chips are a critical ingredient for creating AI systems such as chatbots, image generators and more specialized ones that can help craft biological weapons. Both President Donald Trump and his predecessor, Joe Biden, have implemented progressively tighter export controls of Nvidia's chips to China. But Reuters and other news organizations have documented how some of those chips have continued to flow , and Nvidia has publicly claimed it cannot track its products after they are sold. U.S. Representative Bill Foster, a Democrat from Illinois who once worked as a particle physicist, said the technology to track chips after they are sold is readily available, with much of it already built in to Nvidia's chips. Independent technical experts interviewed by Reuters agreed. Foster, who successfully designed multiple computer chips during his scientific career, plans to introduce in coming weeks a bill that would direct U.S. regulators to come up with rules in two key areas: Tracking chips to ensure they are where they are authorized to be under export control licenses, and preventing those chips from booting up if they are not properly licensed under export controls. Foster told Reuters that there are already credible reports - some of which have not been publicly disclosed - of chip smuggling occurring on a large scale. "This is not an imaginary future problem," Foster told Reuters. "It is a problem now, and at some point we're going to discover that the Chinese Communist Party, or their military, is busy designing weapons using large arrays of chips, or even just working on (artificial general intelligence), which is as immediate as nuclear technology." Nvidia declined to comment for this story. Chip smuggling has taken on new urgency after the emergency of China's DeepSeek, whose AI systems posed a strong challenge to U.S. systems and were built with Nvidia chips that were prohibited for sale to China, according analyst firm SemiAnalysis. Prosecutors in Singapore have charged three Chinese nationals with fraud in a case that involved servers that may have contained Nvidia chips. Though it has not been put into broad use, the technology to verify the location of chips already exists. Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google already tracks the location of its in-house AI chips and others in its vast network of data centers for security purposes, according to two sources with direct knowledge of its operations. Google did not respond to a request for comment. Foster's legislation would give the U.S. Department of Commerce six months to come up with regulations to require the technology. BIPARTISAN SUPPORT Foster's bill has support from fellow Democrats such as Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, the ranking member on the House Select Committee on China. "On-chip location verification is one creative solution we should explore to stop this smuggling," Krishnamoorthi said in a statement. Republicans are also supportive, with Representative John Moolenaar, who chairs the committee, telling Reuters that "the Select Committee has strong bipartisan support for requiring companies like Nvidia to build location-tracking into their high-powered AI chips -- and the technology to do it already exists. The technology for verifying the location of chips would rely on the chips communicating with a secured computer server that would use the length of time it takes for the signal to reach the server to verify where chips are, a concept that relies on knowing that computer signals move at the speed of light. Tim Fist, a former engineer and director of emerging technology policy at Washington think tank Institute for Progress, said such tracking would provide a general, country-level location for chips. But that is far more information than the Bureau of Industry and Security, the arm of the U.S. Commerce Department responsible for enforcement of export controls, currently has. "BIS has no idea which chips they should be targeting as a potential high priority to investigate once they've gone overseas," Fist said. With location verification, "they now at least have bucketed the set of chips that are out there in the world into ones that are very likely to not have been smuggled and ones that warrant further investigation." Foster's second legislative goal of preventing AI chips from booting up if they are not properly licensed under U.S. export controls would be more technologically complex to implement than location verification, but he said the time has come to begin discussions for both efforts. "We've gotten enough input that I think now we can have more detailed discussions with the actual chip and module providers to say, 'How would you actually implement this?'" Foster told Reuters. Reporting by Stephen Nellis and Max A. Cherney in San Francisco; Editing by Kenneth Li and Matthew Lewis Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab Suggested Topics:Artificial Intelligence Max A. Cherney Thomson Reuters Max A. Cherney is a correspondent for Reuters based in San Francisco, where he reports on the semiconductor industry and artificial intelligence. He joined Reuters in 2023 and has previously worked for Barron's magazine and its sister publication, MarketWatch. Cherney graduated from Trent University with a degree in history.

US politicians want to track Nvidia chips smuggled to China

In a nutshell: A new bipartisan bill aims to leverage a previously undisclosed tracking technology embedded in Nvidia chips to monitor where the products end up after sale. The bill's proponents are primarily concerned about powerful GPUs being supplied to Chinese organizations for training adversarial AI models. A former particle physicist and chip designer is advocating for US authorities to adopt an effective method for tracking Nvidia GPUs. "The technology is already there," a supporter of the bill said, adding that the US Department of Commerce would simply need to develop appropriate regulations and enforce existing bans on chip exports to certain nations. According to Bill Foster, a Democrat from Illinois who has designed multiple chips during his career, Nvidia could already determine the current locations of its high-performance GPUs. Much of the technology needed for real-time tracking is already integrated into the chips, Foster stated. Independent experts contacted by Reuters confirmed his claims. How would this chip tracking system actually work? The chips would communicate with a remote server via a secure channel. The server could then estimate their locations by measuring the time it takes for data to travel between the chips and the server. According to former engineer Tim Fist, this method would provide location tracking at the country level. Forget about drug smuggling. It's chips we're concerned about. The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), which is responsible for enforcing export controls for the Department of Commerce, currently lacks any information about the whereabouts of these chips. This means that even identifying the countries where GPUs have been "relocated" would represent a significant improvement. "Right now, the BIS has no idea which chips to target for their investigations," Fist said. US politicians are particularly worried about powerful Nvidia GPUs reaching China. While direct sales to Chinese organizations are now prohibited under export bans, Nvidia chips continue to reach the region through indirect channels. Nvidia has previously stated that it has no way to track its products once they are sold to customers. Foster emphasized that this is not a hypothetical future concern. The US may soon discover that Beijing's authorities - or its military - are already using smuggled Nvidia GPUs to develop new weapons or train advanced AI models. He expressed particular concern about artificial intelligence, which he warned could pose a threat as immediate and serious as nuclear technology.

Nvidia chips could face new tracking rules under a bipartisan bill to stop chip smuggling to China

A U.S. lawmaker plans to introduce legislation in coming weeks to verify the location of artificial-intelligence chips like those made by Nvidia after they are sold. The effort to keep tabs on the chips, which drew bipartisan support from U.S. lawmakers, aims to address reports of widespread smuggling of Nvidia's chips into China in violation of U.S. export control laws. Nvidia's chips are a critical ingredient for creating AI systems such as chatbots, image generators and more specialized ones that can help craft biological weapons. Both President Donald Trump and his predecessor, Joe Biden, have implemented progressively tighter export controls of Nvidia's chips to China. But Reuters and other news organizations have documented how some of those chips have continued to flow into China, and Nvidia has publicly claimed it cannot track its products after they are sold.

NVIDIA faces new regulations that tracks AI chips, bricks illegal AI systems used in China

US lawmakers to introduce new legislation in the coming weeks that verifies the location of AI chips, will tackle NVIDIA AI chips smuggled into China. As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. TweakTown may also earn commissions from other affiliate partners at no extra cost to you. US lawmaker plans to introduce new legislation that would verify the location of AI chips after they're sold, which would effectively solve the NVIDIA AI chip smuggling into China. We know there are boatloads of high-end GPUs and AI chips entering China, even after the continuously strengthened US export restrictions, but those NVIDIA chips continue to flow into the country, with NVIDIA publicly claiming the company has no way of tracking where their products are after they're sold. But now, U.S. Representative Bill Foster, a Democrat from Illinois who once worked as a particle physicist, said that technology to track chips after they're sold isn't hard, and that much of it is already baked into NVIDIA chips, with "independent technical experts interviewed by Reuters agreed". Foster has successfully designed multiple computing chips during his career, plans to introduce a new bill in the coming weeks that would direct US regulations to come up with rules in two key areas: first, the tracking of chips to ensure they are where they're authorized to be under export control licenses, and two, preventing those AI chips from booting up if they're not properly licensed under export control. Foster spoke with Reuters that there are already credible reports, some of which haven't been publicly disclosed, of large-scale chip smuggling into China. Foster told Reuters: "This is not an imaginary future problem. It is a problem now, and at some point we're going to discover that the Chinese Communist Party, or their military, is busy designing weapons using large arrays of chips, or even just working on (artificial general intelligence), which is as immediate as nuclear technology". The new on-chip location verification technology would verify the location of the chips through communicating with the chip in question with a secured server, which would use the length of time it would take for the signal to reach the server to verify where the chips are exactly. The second part of Foster's proposed legislation would prevent AI chips from booting up if they're not properly licensed under US export controls, which would be a super-advanced version of the location verification technology. Foster told Reuters: "We've gotten enough input that I think now we can have more detailed discussions with the actual chip and module providers to say, 'How would you actually implement this?'".

Exclusive-US Lawmaker Targets Nvidia Chip Smuggling to China With New Bill

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -A U.S. lawmaker plans to introduce legislation in coming weeks to verify the location of artificial-intelligence chips like those made by Nvidia after they are sold. The effort to keep tabs on the chips, which drew bipartisan support from U.S. lawmakers, aims to address reports of widespread smuggling of Nvidia's chips into China in violation of U.S. export control laws. Nvidia's chips are a critical ingredient for creating AI systems such as chatbots, image generators and more specialized ones that can help craft biological weapons. Both President Donald Trump and his predecessor, Joe Biden, have implemented progressively tighter export controls of Nvidia's chips to China. But Reuters and other news organizations have documented how some of those chips have continued to flow into China, and Nvidia has publicly claimed it cannot track its products after they are sold. U.S. Representative Bill Foster, a Democrat from Illinois who once worked as a particle physicist, said the technology to track chips after they are sold is readily available, with much of it already built in to Nvidia's chips. Independent technical experts interviewed by Reuters agreed. Foster, who successfully designed multiple computer chips during his scientific career, plans to introduce in coming weeks a bill that would direct U.S. regulators to come up with rules in two key areas: Tracking chips to ensure they are where they are authorized to be under export control licenses, and preventing those chips from booting up if they are not properly licensed under export controls. Foster told Reuters that there are already credible reports - some of which have not been publicly disclosed - of chip smuggling occurring on a large scale. "This is not an imaginary future problem," Foster told Reuters. "It is a problem now, and at some point we're going to discover that the Chinese Communist Party, or their military, is busy designing weapons using large arrays of chips, or even just working on (artificial general intelligence), which is as immediate as nuclear technology." Nvidia declined to comment for this story. Chip smuggling has taken on new urgency after the emergency of China's DeepSeek, whose AI systems posed a strong challenge to U.S. systems and were built with Nvidia chips that were prohibited for sale to China, according analyst firm SemiAnalysis. Prosecutors in Singapore have charged three Chinese nationals with fraud in a case that involved servers that may have contained Nvidia chips. Though it has not been put into broad use, the technology to verify the location of chips already exists. Alphabet's Google already tracks the location of its in-house AI chips and others in its vast network of data centers for security purposes, according to two sources with direct knowledge of its operations. Google did not respond to a request for comment. Foster's legislation would give the U.S. Department of Commerce six months to come up with regulations to require the technology. BIPARTISAN SUPPORT Foster's bill has support from fellow Democrats such as Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, the ranking member on the House Select Committee on China. "On-chip location verification is one creative solution we should explore to stop this smuggling," Krishnamoorthi said in a statement. Republicans are also supportive, with Representative John Moolenaar, who chairs the committee, telling Reuters that "the Select Committee has strong bipartisan support for requiring companies like Nvidia to build location-tracking into their high-powered AI chips -- and the technology to do it already exists. The technology for verifying the location of chips would rely on the chips communicating with a secured computer server that would use the length of time it takes for the signal to reach the server to verify where chips are, a concept that relies on knowing that computer signals move at the speed of light. Tim Fist, a former engineer and director of emerging technology policy at Washington think tank Institute for Progress, said such tracking would provide a general, country-level location for chips. But that is far more information than the Bureau of Industry and Security, the arm of the U.S. Commerce Department responsible for enforcement of export controls, currently has. "BIS has no idea which chips they should be targeting as a potential high priority to investigate once they've gone overseas," Fist said. With location verification, "they now at least have bucketed the set of chips that are out there in the world into ones that are very likely to not have been smuggled and ones that warrant further investigation." Foster's second legislative goal of preventing AI chips from booting up if they are not properly licensed under U.S. export controls would be more technologically complex to implement than location verification, but he said the time has come to begin discussions for both efforts. "We've gotten enough input that I think now we can have more detailed discussions with the actual chip and module providers to say, 'How would you actually implement this?'" Foster told Reuters. (Reporting by Stephen Nellis and Max A. Cherney in San Francisco; Editing by Kenneth Li and Matthew Lewis)

US lawmaker targets Nvidia chip smuggling to China with new bill

A US lawmaker plans to propose legislation requiring location tracking of AI chips like Nvidia's to curb smuggling into China, violating export controls. The bill seeks to mandate chip verification and restrict unauthorised use, with bipartisan backing. Experts say the technology exists but is not yet widely implemented.A US lawmaker plans to introduce legislation in coming weeks to verify the location of artificial-intelligence chips like those made by Nvidia after they are sold. The effort to keep tabs on the chips, which drew bipartisan support from US lawmakers, aims to address reports of widespread smuggling of Nvidia's chips into China in violation of US export control laws. Nvidia's chips are a critical ingredient for creating AI systems such as chatbots, image generators and more specialized ones that can help craft biological weapons. Both President Donald Trump and his predecessor, Joe Biden, have implemented progressively tighter export controls of Nvidia's chips to China. But Reuters and other news organizations have documented how some of those chips have continued to flow into China, and Nvidia has publicly claimed it cannot track its products after they are sold. US Representative Bill Foster, a Democrat from Illinois who once worked as a particle physicist, said the technology to track chips after they are sold is readily available, with much of it already built in to Nvidia's chips. Independent technical experts interviewed by Reuters agreed. Foster, who successfully designed multiple computer chips during his scientific career, plans to introduce in coming weeks a bill that would direct US regulators to come up with rules in two key areas: Tracking chips to ensure they are where they are authorized to be under export control licenses, and preventing those chips from booting up if they are not properly licensed under export controls. Foster told Reuters that there are already credible reports - some of which have not been publicly disclosed - of chip smuggling occurring on a large scale. "This is not an imaginary future problem," Foster told Reuters. "It is a problem now, and at some point we're going to discover that the Chinese Communist Party, or their military, is busy designing weapons using large arrays of chips, or even just working on (artificial general intelligence), which is as immediate as nuclear technology." Nvidia declined to comment for this story. Chip smuggling has taken on new urgency after the emergence of China's DeepSeek, whose AI systems posed a strong challenge to US systems and were built with Nvidia chips that were prohibited for sale to China, according to analyst firm SemiAnalysis. Prosecutors in Singapore have charged three Chinese nationals with fraud in a case that involved servers that may have contained Nvidia chips. Though it has not been put into broad use, the technology to verify the location of chips already exists. Alphabet's Google already tracks the location of its in-house AI chips and others in its vast network of data centers for security purposes, according to two sources with direct knowledge of its operations. Google did not respond to a request for comment. Foster's legislation would give the US Department of Commerce six months to come up with regulations to require the technology. Bipartisan Support Foster's bill has support from fellow Democrats such as Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, the ranking member on the House Select Committee on China. "On-chip location verification is one creative solution we should explore to stop this smuggling," Krishnamoorthi said in a statement. Republicans are also supportive, though none have yet signed on to specific legislation because it has not yet been introduced. Representative John Moolenaar, who chairs the committee, supports the concept of location tracking and plans to meet with lawmakers in both the House and US Senate this week on potential legislative approaches. "The Select Committee has strong bipartisan support for requiring companies like Nvidia to build location-tracking into their high-powered AI chips - and the technology to do it already exists," Moolenaar told Reuters. The technology for verifying the location of chips would rely on the chips communicating with a secured computer server that would use the length of time it takes for the signal to reach the server to verify where chips are, a concept that relies on knowing that computer signals move at the speed of light. Tim Fist, a former engineer and director of emerging technology policy at Washington think tank Institute for Progress, said such tracking would provide a general, country-level location for chips. But that is far more information than the Bureau of Industry and Security, the arm of the US Commerce Department responsible for enforcement of export controls, currently has. "BIS has no idea which chips they should be targeting as a potential high priority to investigate once they've gone overseas," Fist said. With location verification, "they now at least have bucketed the set of chips that are out there in the world into ones that are very likely to not have been smuggled and ones that warrant further investigation." Foster's second legislative goal of preventing AI chips from booting up if they are not properly licensed under US export controls would be more technologically complex to implement than location verification, but he said the time has come to begin discussions for both efforts. "We've gotten enough input that I think now we can have more detailed discussions with the actual chip and module providers to say, 'How would you actually implement this?'" Foster told Reuters.

Nvidia's New Challenge: US Lawmaker Wants Company To Track Its Chips To Avoid Smuggling In China - NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA)

The Trump administration has intensified semiconductor sanctions on top of its tariff policies. The U.S. plans to introduce a ruling to verify the location of Nvidia Corp NVDA and peer-made artificial intelligence chips to prevent their smuggling into China, Reuters reported on Monday. Nvidia stock is trading lower after the report. Also Read: Analyst Sticks With Nvidia Despite Fallout From China Curbs The Biden administration had already restricted China's access to sophisticated semiconductor technology, including AI, citing national security threats. Nvidia's chips are critical to creating AI systems, including chatbots and image generators, to ones that can help craft biological weapons. Reports have often indicated Nvidia AI chips flowing into China via illegal routes, and Nvidia has publicly acknowledged its failure to track its products after sales. U.S. Representative Bill Foster, a Democrat from Illinois, plans to introduce a bill that would direct U.S. regulators to forge rules for tracking chips to ensure they remain in their legal location. Reportedly, Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, whose AI systems posed a strong challenge to U.S. systems, were built with advanced Nvidia chips, Reuters cited SemiAnalysis. Alphabet Inc's GOOG GOOGL Google already tracks the location of its in-house AI chips and others for security purposes, Reuters cited unnamed sources familiar with the matter. Foster's legislation would give the U.S. Department of Commerce six months to develop laws requiring the technology. Reportedly, Chinese tech giants, including ByteDance, Alibaba Group Holding BABA, and Tencent Holding TCEHY, hoarded billions of dollars worth of Nvidia's H20 AI chips amid U.S. sanctions. They aimed to snap up 1 million H20s before the latest U.S. semiconductor sanctions kicked in. The companies reportedly placed over $16 billion in orders for the quarter. Nvidia has bagged $18 billion of H20 orders since 2025 beginning. China has generated $17 billion in revenue in fiscal 2024, accounting for 13% of Nvidia's total sales. Price Actions: NVDA stock is down by 1.31% at $113.01 at the last check on Monday. Read Next: Taiwan Semiconductor Gains On Strong Earnings From Meta And Microsoft Boosting AI Demand Image Via Shutterstock NVDANVIDIA Corp$113.08-1.24%Stock Score Locked: Want to See it? Benzinga Rankings give you vital metrics on any stock - anytime. Reveal Full ScoreEdge RankingsMomentum74.63Growth94.84Quality97.52Value7.42Price TrendShortMediumLongOverviewBABAAlibaba Group Holding Ltd$126.660.72%GOOGAlphabet Inc$166.490.41%GOOGLAlphabet Inc$164.800.47%TCEHYTencent Holdings Ltd$63.55-0.63%Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

U.S. lawmaker targets smuggling of Nvidia chips to China with new bill

A U.S. lawmaker plans to introduce legislation in coming weeks to verify the location of artificial intelligence chips such as those made by Nvidia after they are sold. The effort to keep tabs on the chips, which drew bipartisan support from U.S. lawmakers, aims to address reports of widespread smuggling of Nvidia's chips into China in violation of U.S. export control laws. Nvidia's chips are a critical ingredient for creating AI systems such as chatbots, image generators and more specialized ones that can help craft biological weapons. Both U.S. President Donald Trump and his predecessor, Joe Biden, have implemented progressively tighter export controls of Nvidia's chips to China.

The US Could Tackle NVIDIA AI Chip Smuggling To China By Integrating a "Kill Switch" & Tracking GPUs After They Are Sold

It seems like the US hasn't managed to thwart AI chip transfer through export controls, and they could implement a "nefarious" plan to manage chip exports. US Export Controls Haven't Managed to Do Much Damage To China's AI Progress, But Apparently Kill Switches Will Do The Job There isn't a doubt that US chip exports haven't managed to counter the influence of China's AI developments at all, since not only has the nation come up with in-house alternatives from the likes of Huawei, but they have always had a consistent supply of AI chips, through trade loopholes and other means. Now, it seems like the US could implement new ways of limiting chip exports to China, and a bill proposed by a US lawmaker, Bill Foster, a Democrat from Illinois, says that AI chip exports from NVIDIA should be tracked by integrating a mechanism inside them, saying that a technology is already available. This is not an imaginary future problem. It is a problem now, and at some point we're going to discover that the Chinese Communist Party, or their military, is busy designing weapons using large arrays of chips, or even just working on (artificial general intelligence), which is as immediate as nuclear technology. - Bill Foster via Reuters Foster is said to be a particle physicist and has experience designing computer chips, so that we can take his word with credibility. He plans to introduce a bill that would not only allow the US to track NVIDIA's chips, but will also give them the ability to basically make them "useless" whenever needed, in scenarios when an entity is using the AI chips without a proper license. So basically, a "kill switch" in AI accelerators is now being proposed by a US lawmaker. Interestingly, the times we are living in. NVIDIA says that they cannot track the export of their chips at all, citing that China has access to them through loopholes that are yet to be traced. And considering that AI is emerging as a national security matter for the US, implementing such methods certainly cannot be out of the equation. Given the surprises the Trump administration has given the world, a kill switch is something "not" out of the ordinary. However, there's no doubt that the US needs to come up with a solution to regulate chip exports effectively, since recent decisions haven't worked out quite well, both for NVIDIA and the US government.

Smuggling AI Chips from China? U.S. Bill Targets Global Tracking of Nvidia GPUs.

New Bill Seeks to Stop Smuggling Nvidia GPUs into China with On-Chip Tracking A new bill has been introduced in the US, which states that Nvidia GPUs will be tracked globally in response to concerns over AI chip smuggling into China. Legislators have issued warnings about the use of sophisticated AI chips for China's military and surveillance capabilities. The legislation mandates the reporting of Nvidia GPUs' export and resale actions. In this manner, the US government hopes to bolster national security and maintain its technological superiority.

Nvidia faces new US bill aimed at restricting China chip smuggling- Reuters By Investing.com

Investing.com-- Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) is set to face a new U.S. bill in the coming weeks that will aim to verify the location of its artificial intelligence chips after they are sold, Reuters reported on Monday. U.S. Representative Bill Foster, a Democrat from Illinois, is preparing a bill that will direct U.S. regulators to track chips to ensure they comply with U.S. export controls, and to also introduce technology that will prevent AI chips from booting unless they comply with export controls, Reuters reported. The measures are to be aimed chiefly at preventing the flow of Nvidia's advanced AI chips into China, especially amid strict U.S. export controls on chip sales to China. The measures will also crack down on chips being smuggled into China. Foster's bill has support from fellow Democrats, while Republicans are also expected to signal support after the bill is introduced, Reuters reported. The government's earlier efforts to control the flow of chips to China have drawn bipartisan support. Nvidia's chips are a key component of advanced AI programs. The company until very recently was allowed to sell a less powerful, less advanced AI chip in China. But the Donald Trump administration introduced new measures placing even more restrictions on chip sales to China.

Exclusive-US lawmaker targets Nvidia chip smuggling to China with new bill

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -A U.S. lawmaker plans to introduce legislation in coming weeks to verify the location of artificial-intelligence chips like those made by Nvidia after they are sold. The effort to keep tabs on the chips, which drew bipartisan support from U.S. lawmakers, aims to address reports of widespread smuggling of Nvidia's chips into China in violation of U.S. export control laws. Nvidia's chips are a critical ingredient for creating AI systems such as chatbots, image generators and more specialized ones that can help craft biological weapons. Both President Donald Trump and his predecessor, Joe Biden, have implemented progressively tighter export controls of Nvidia's chips to China. But Reuters and other news organizations have documented how some of those chips have continued to flow into China, and Nvidia has publicly claimed it cannot track its products after they are sold. U.S. Representative Bill Foster, a Democrat from Illinois who once worked as a particle physicist, said the technology to track chips after they are sold is readily available, with much of it already built in to Nvidia's chips. Independent technical experts interviewed by Reuters agreed. Foster, who successfully designed multiple computer chips during his scientific career, plans to introduce in coming weeks a bill that would direct U.S. regulators to come up with rules in two key areas: Tracking chips to ensure they are where they are authorized to be under export control licenses, and preventing those chips from booting up if they are not properly licensed under export controls. Foster told Reuters that there are already credible reports - some of which have not been publicly disclosed - of chip smuggling occurring on a large scale. "This is not an imaginary future problem," Foster told Reuters. "It is a problem now, and at some point we're going to discover that the Chinese Communist Party, or their military, is busy designing weapons using large arrays of chips, or even just working on (artificial general intelligence), which is as immediate as nuclear technology." Nvidia declined to comment for this story. Chip smuggling has taken on new urgency after the emergency of China's DeepSeek, whose AI systems posed a strong challenge to U.S. systems and were built with Nvidia chips that were prohibited for sale to China, according analyst firm SemiAnalysis. Prosecutors in Singapore have charged three Chinese nationals with fraud in a case that involved servers that may have contained Nvidia chips. Though it has not been put into broad use, the technology to verify the location of chips already exists. Alphabet's Google already tracks the location of its in-house AI chips and others in its vast network of data centers for security purposes, according to two sources with direct knowledge of its operations. Google did not respond to a request for comment. Foster's legislation would give the U.S. Department of Commerce six months to come up with regulations to require the technology. BIPARTISAN SUPPORT Foster's bill has support from fellow Democrats such as Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, the ranking member on the House Select Committee on China. "On-chip location verification is one creative solution we should explore to stop this smuggling," Krishnamoorthi said in a statement. Republicans are also supportive, with Representative John Moolenaar, who chairs the committee, telling Reuters that "the Select Committee has strong bipartisan support for requiring companies like Nvidia to build location-tracking into their high-powered AI chips -- and the technology to do it already exists. The technology for verifying the location of chips would rely on the chips communicating with a secured computer server that would use the length of time it takes for the signal to reach the server to verify where chips are, a concept that relies on knowing that computer signals move at the speed of light. Tim Fist, a former engineer and director of emerging technology policy at Washington think tank Institute for Progress, said such tracking would provide a general, country-level location for chips. But that is far more information than the Bureau of Industry and Security, the arm of the U.S. Commerce Department responsible for enforcement of export controls, currently has. "BIS has no idea which chips they should be targeting as a potential high priority to investigate once they've gone overseas," Fist said. With location verification, "they now at least have bucketed the set of chips that are out there in the world into ones that are very likely to not have been smuggled and ones that warrant further investigation." Foster's second legislative goal of preventing AI chips from booting up if they are not properly licensed under U.S. export controls would be more technologically complex to implement than location verification, but he said the time has come to begin discussions for both efforts. "We've gotten enough input that I think now we can have more detailed discussions with the actual chip and module providers to say, 'How would you actually implement this?'" Foster told Reuters. (Reporting by Stephen Nellis and Max A. Cherney in San Francisco; Editing by Kenneth Li and Matthew Lewis)

US lawmaker wants to curb smuggling of Nvidia chips to China

A US congressman plans to introduce legislation in the coming weeks to strengthen the traceability of artificial intelligence chips, particularly those produced by Nvidia, after they are sold. The initiative, which has bipartisan support, aims to counter the growing cases of smuggling of these components to China in violation of US export controls. These chips, produced by Nvidia, are essential to the functioning of AI systems such as chatbots, image generators and even certain dual-use tools that could contribute to the manufacture of biological weapons. They have been subject to increasingly strict regulation since the Trump and Biden administrations. However, despite these restrictions, diverted exports continue. According to Nvidia, it is currently impossible to track its chips after they are sold, a claim disputed by a growing number of experts. Democratic Representative Bill Foster, a former physicist specializing in electronic chip design, believes that chip geolocation technology already exists and is even partially integrated into Nvidia components. He wants his future law to require US authorities to establish rules in two key areas: first, post-sale tracking of chips to verify their actual location in relation to export authorizations; and second, the inability to activate chips that do not comply with licenses. "This is not a hypothetical problem. It is a current problem. And one day, we will discover that the Chinese Communist Party or its military is using these chips to develop weapons or general artificial intelligence systems with potential as dangerous as nuclear weapons," Foster warned in an interview with Reuters. Concrete cases fuel this concern. According to the firm SemiAnalysis, the recent performance of Chinese AI DeepSeek is based on Nvidia chips banned from export to China. In Singapore, prosecutors have charged three people in a fraud case potentially involving these components. Nvidia has declined to comment on this information. The geolocation of the chips is said to be based on technology that uses the response time of signals exchanged between the chips and a secure server, based on the speed of light, to determine their position. Alphabet, Google's parent company, is already using this type of device to track its own AI chips in its data centers, according to two sources familiar with the matter. Foster's bill would give the Department of Commerce six months to develop regulations requiring manufacturers to use these technologies. The idea is supported by several Democratic lawmakers, including Raja Krishnamoorthi, vice chair of the House China Committee: "Chip-based location verification is an innovative solution we should explore to stop smuggling." Republican support is also on board, although no elected officials have yet officially co-sponsored the proposal. John Moolenaar, Republican chairman of the same committee, has expressed support for such legislation, saying the technology already exists. Tim Fist, a former engineer and now director of emerging technology policy at the Institute for Progress think tank, believes that this tracking system would provide authorities with valuable insight. "The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) currently does not know which chips are worth targeting. This system would at least allow chips to be classified into two categories: those that are likely compliant and those that require further investigation." The second part of the project, preventing unauthorized chips from being activated, would be more complex to implement from a technical standpoint, Foster admits. But he believes the time is right to start discussions with component suppliers: "We've received enough feedback to move into a more concrete phase with manufacturers and look at how this could be implemented."