Nvidia representatives told US Representative Bill Foster that safeguards to locate advanced AI chips were technically feasible, Foster said in a 12 November interview with MIT Technology Review. Foster, an Illinois Democrat and cosponsor of the Chip Security Act, was discussing a bill intended to prevent chips from being smuggled to China. His account contrasts with a March objection from a semiconductor trade association to which Nvidia belongs.
Key points
- Foster said Nvidia representatives considered the bill’s anti-smuggling measures technically possible during discussions with him.
- The Semiconductor Industry Association opposed the proposal in March, describing its chip-tracking mandates as “new, untested, and potentially infeasible”.
- The draft allows facility inspections, company attestations or ping-based checks to verify chip locations.
- A version of the Senate proposal would give the Commerce Department 180 days after enactment to require safeguards on covered exports and other foreign transfers.
Foster’s account and the industry objection
“They never put anything in writing,” Foster said of the Nvidia representatives. He described their response in technical discussions as “yeah, of course we can do this.” The account is the lawmaker’s characterisation of a private exchange, rather than a written commitment from the company. MIT Technology Review reported that Nvidia did not respond to its requests for comment or for confirmation of Foster’s account.
Lawmakers introduced the Chip Security Act in May 2025 to require ways of verifying where advanced AI chips are located. At the time, they said the necessary technology existed. The Semiconductor Industry Association opposed the measure in March 2026 and called its tracking mandates “new, untested, and potentially infeasible”. Nvidia is a member of the association. Foster’s description concerns what company representatives told him in technical discussions; the association’s objection concerns mandates across the industry.
The distinction matters for the bill now before legislators. One company’s ability to build a safeguard would not, by itself, settle how a compulsory check would work across covered products and customers. The association’s objection also encompasses whether the mandated mechanisms have been tested. Foster says Nvidia representatives told him implementation was possible.
Nvidia’s Fleet Intelligence and location checks
Nvidia announced Fleet Intelligence in December 2025 as a tool for customers to monitor the performance of advanced chips at different data-centre locations. The tool could indicate which country the chips were in, Nvidia confirmed to Reuters, according to MIT Technology Review. The company did not elaborate to Reuters on whether it could be used against smuggling. Customer monitoring and a location check required for an export are separate uses of the technology.
In early October, MIT Technology Review asked Nvidia whether Fleet Intelligence could help prevent smuggling. Rather than answer that question directly, the company sent a statement saying governments and media had found “insignificant diversion of controlled US products”. The statement addressed the scale of diversion as Nvidia described it, while Foster’s account addressed the feasibility of a safeguard.
The draft Chip Security Act would permit verification through inspections of facilities, attestations from companies or a mechanism under which a chip sends a location signal when it comes online. A September analysis by the Center for Security and Emerging Technology found the signal-based option would be the most cost-effective. The proposed choices leave the means of checking a chip’s location wider than any single Nvidia product.
Commerce Department duties under the Senate text
Under the introduced Senate text, the Commerce Department would have 180 days after enactment to mandate location checks on eligible advanced chips and related devices ahead of shipments from the US, onward shipments or moves within another country, The Defiant reported. The proposal permits software, firmware, hardware and physical-security measures that are feasible and appropriate at enactment. Holders of export licences or authorisations would also have to report promptly credible information about a product being outside its licensed location, diverted to another user or subject to tampering.
Those duties would put a location check into the conditions governing covered chip shipments, rather than leave monitoring to a customer’s choice. They would give the Commerce Department a role in setting safeguards and require licence holders to pass on evidence of diversion. The proposal is one of three chip-security bills being considered for inclusion in the Senate’s National Defense Authorization Act. It has drawn attention after Jensen Huang’s resignation as Nvidia chief executive; AI Affairs previously reported lawmakers’ calls for his resignation during a review of Nvidia’s China chip controls.
A location check would tell investigators where a chip was, but would not disconnect it if it had been smuggled. Foster said he intended to propose a separate rule requiring an operating licence to be verified before an advanced GPU could connect. The Defiant reported that a House committee voted 42–0 on 26 March to report a substitute version of the Chip Security Act. The standalone Senate bill remained referred to the Banking Committee.
