Taiwan’s primary news agency, the Central News Agency (CNA), recently reported that NVIDIA has confirmed the development of a “location verification” technology capable of determining the country in which its chips are actually operating. The feature is designed to help prevent NVIDIA’s artificial intelligence (AI) chips from being smuggled into countries subject to U.S. export restrictions.
The technology has been demonstrated privately over the past few months but has not yet been officially released. It can be installed by customers and relies on NVIDIA GPUs’ confidential (secure) computing capabilities. According to NVIDIA sources, the software was originally created to help customers monitor overall computing performance. It estimates a chip’s location by analyzing communication latency with NVIDIA servers, with accuracy comparable to that of standard internet-based location services. NVIDIA stressed that the software does not allow the company to remotely control or interfere with customer systems, and that all telemetry data sent to NVIDIA servers is read-only, meaning the servers cannot write data back to the chips.
NVIDIA’s location-verification feature is widely seen as a response to pressure from the White House and bipartisan members of Congress to strengthen export controls. In recent weeks, the U.S. Department of Justice has filed criminal charges against several China-linked smuggling networks, accusing them of attempting to illegally export more than US$160 million worth of NVIDIA chips to China.
Source: CNA, December 11, 2025
https://www.cna.com.tw/news/ait/202512110148.aspx