According to sources cited by Reuters, Nvidia has developed location-validation technology that can show which country its chips are operating in, helping to prevent their artificial intelligence (AI) chips from being smuggled into countries that are prohibited from exporting.

The news indicates that this new feature of Nvidia utilizes the confidential computing power of its image processor (GPU). The company has demonstrated this feature privately in recent months, but has not publicly released it, allowing customers to choose to install it when updating the software.

Utilize GPU monitoring. Not publicly released

The report points out that the software's purpose is to enable customers to track the overall computing performance of the chips, which is a common practice for businesses when purchasing large numbers of processors for large data centers. It also uses the communication time delay with servers running Nvidia to sense the location of the chips, which is comparable to the performance provided by other Internet-based services.

'We are implementing a program for a new software service that will enable data center operators to monitor the health and inventory of the entire AI GPU fleet,' said in a statement. This customer-installed software agent uses GPU telemetry technology to monitor the health, integrity, and inventory of a large number of processors."

The official said the feature will be launched first on Nvidia's latest Blackwell chips. The Blackwell validation process has more security features than previous generations of Hope and Ampere semiconductors, but the company is also working on the options for these earlier generations of chips.

China questions whether there is a "back door"

If the technology is officially released, Nvidia's location update will respond to calls from lawmakers from both major political parties in the White House and the U.S. Congress to take measures to prevent smuggling to China and other countries restricting the sale of AI chips, the report said. However, this has led to questioning from China's top cybersecurity regulator, Nvidia's products whether they contain a "back door" that allows the US to bypass its chip security features.

US President Trump previously stated that Washington will allow Nvidia to export more advanced H200 artificial intelligence chips to China, but according to the Financial Times, the Chinese government will restrict the acquisition and use of H200 chips by mainland China$英偉達(NVDA)$