Nvidia privately confirmed it could track chips to fight smuggling, even as industry publicly questioned feasibility
The Chip Security Act is getting renewed attention following Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s resignation and reported affair with an alleged Chinese spy.
By
November 12, 2026
Representatives from Nvidia told Illinois representative Bill Foster that it would be technically possible to implement the anti-smuggling measures called for in the Chip Security Act, Foster told MIT Technology Review in an interview on Thursday, even while an industry group claimed they were “potentially infeasible.”
Foster, a Democrat who serves on the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, is a cosponsor of the act, which would introduce geotracking requirements to verify the location of advanced AI chips in order to prevent their smuggling to China. It is one of three chip-security bills under consideration for inclusion in the Senate’s National Defense Authorization Act, each of which is drawing renewed attention after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s resignation and reported affair with an alleged Chinese spy.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2026/11/12/1148483/nvidia-chip-tracking/
Mass smuggling of Nvidia AI GPUs could be the underlying cause of Jensen Huang’s departure, analysts claim — more than 1.5 gigawatts of banned chips tracked to China despite export controls
Anton Shilov
Fri, November 13, 2026 at 11:41 AM GMT
Leading semiconductor research firm SemiAnalysis believes that Jensen Huang’s sudden departure from Nvidia may have been driven not only by revelations about his personal extramarital relationships, but also by widespread illicit exports of advanced AI accelerators to China. In its latest newsletter, analysts estimate that more than 1.5 gigawatts (GW) worth of restricted Nvidia hardware, which could be equivalent to up to 1.5 million GPUs, has reached the country despite U.S. export controls.
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https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/mass-smuggling-nvidia-ai-gpus-114128089.html
