Nvidia Privately Confirms Chip Tracking Capability Amid Smuggling Concerns

Nvidia has privately assured U.S. Representative Bill Foster that it possesses the technical capability to implement anti-smuggling measures for its advanced AI chips, a revelation that contradicts the public stance of an industry group, of which Nvidia is a member, which deemed such systems "potentially infeasible." Foster, a Democrat serving on the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, is a cosponsor of the proposed Chip Security Act. This act aims to introduce geotracking requirements to verify the location of advanced AI chips, specifically to prevent their smuggling to China. It is one of three chip-security bills currently under consideration for inclusion in the Senate’s National Defense Authorization Act. When the Chip Security Act was introduced in May 2025, lawmakers asserted that the necessary technology existed, a claim Nvidia had not publicly confirmed. By March 2026, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) explicitly opposed the bill, stating that its mandates for chip tracking were "new, untested, and potentially infeasible." However, during private technical discussions with Foster, Nvidia representatives conveyed to the lawmaker that the company could indeed implement these measures. "They never put anything in writing," Foster stated, but their reaction during these discussions on the possibility of such safeguards was, "yeah, of course we can do this." This private acknowledgment to Foster goes further than anything Nvidia has previously made public. Further evidence of Nvidia's capabilities can be seen in other technologies it has developed for customers. In December 2025, for instance, the company announced a new tool called Fleet Intelligence. This tool allows customers to monitor the performance of its advanced chips across various data center locations, and in doing so, it can indicate the country where the chips are located, a capability Nvidia confirmed.