Nvidia privately confirmed it could track chips to fight smuggling, even as industry publicly questioned feasibility
Nvidia privately told Rep. Bill Foster it could track chips to combat smuggling, despite industry groups publicly calling such mandates infeasible.Summary
Representatives from Nvidia privately told Illinois Representative Bill Foster that the tracking requirements of his Chip Security Act, aimed at preventing the smuggling of advanced AI chips to China, were technically feasible, even though the Semiconductor Industry Association, of which Nvidia is a member, publicly opposed the bill and called its mandates "new, untested, and potentially infeasible." Foster said Nvidia representatives told him in technical discussions that they could implement the safeguards, though they never put anything in writing. Nvidia's Fleet Intelligence tool, announced in December 2025, already allows customers to monitor chip performance across data center locations and could indicate which country chips are in, though Nvidia would not say whether it could prevent smuggling. The controversy has been fueled by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang's resignation and reported affair with Alice Huang, who runs Megaspeed, a Singaporean firm under investigation for smuggling advanced GPUs to China. The Chip Security Act is one of three chip-security bills under consideration for inclusion in the Senate's National Defense Authorization Act. Foster said he intends to introduce stricter legislation requiring licenses to operate advanced GPUs, and that the controversy has increased political pressure on companies to ensure accurate geographic validation of chips.
(Source：MIT Technology Review)