Nvidia privately confirmed it could track chips to fight smuggling, even as industry publicly questioned feasibility
In doing so, the tool could indicate which country chips were in, Nvidia confirmed to Reuters, but the company would not elaborate on whether this technology could be used to prevent smuggling.
- products—a drop in the bucket compared to the ocean of domestic compute China already has.” The recent fallout at Nvidia involves a number of people and companies alleged to be involved in chip smuggling.
- In December 2025, Nvidia announced a new tool called Fleet Intelligence that would allow its customers to monitor how its advanced chips were performing across different data center locations.
- The Chip Security Act as drafted would require a mechanism to track the locations of chips, either by inspections of facilities, attestations by companies, or ping-based location mechanisms.
When the Chip Security Act was introduced in May 2025, lawmakers said the technology to implement it exists, something Nvidia has not publicly confirmed.
MIT Technology Review asked Nvidia in early October if its Fleet Intelligence tool could be used to prevent smuggling, which lawmakers were reportedly increasingly concerned about Nvidia’s role in.
- Other technology built by Nvidia for its customers suggests that the company can indeed offer accurate tracking of its chips’ locations.
- It is one of three chip-security bills under consideration for inclusion in the Senate’s National Defense Authorization Act, each drawing renewed attention after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s resignation and reported affair with an alleged Chinese spy.
- “They never put anything in writing, but when I had technical discussions,” Foster said, the reaction was, “yeah, of course we can do this.” This private acknowledgement to Foster goes farther than anything Nvidia has previously stated.
- But if the requirements of the bill pass as part of the Senate’s National Defense Authorization Act, the new tracking mechanisms would only tell investigators where the chips are, not offer a way to disconnect them if it’s revealed they have been smuggled.
- In the meantime, the controversy at Nvidia, Foster says, has fueled support among his colleagues for the rules in the bill: “There will be a lot of political pressure, in the wake of everything that’s happened, on the companies to actually do a very good….
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