Nvidia Told Congress Chip Tracking Is Feasible, Congressman Says

Nvidia privately told Representative Bill Foster that meeting the Chip Security Act's location-tracking requirements is technically straightforward, according to a MIT Technology Review report published Thursday, Nov. 12. The Illinois Democrat and co-sponsor of the bill said Nvidia's reaction in informal technical discussions was: "yeah, of course we can do this."

The remark was verbal. "They never put anything in writing," Foster told the publication. Nvidia did not respond to requests to confirm his account. The gap between the private assurance and the industry's public posture is now the story.

What does the bill actually require?

The Chip Security Act, introduced in May 2025, would require companies to verify where advanced AI chips end up after export. As drafted, verification could take three forms: facility inspections, company attestations, or a ping-based mechanism in which a GPU sends a location signal when it comes online.

The ping-based option is the hardest to circumvent. A September study by Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology found it would also be the most cost-effective approach, MIT Technology Review reported.

One limit matters. The tracking would show where chips are, but it would not let anyone switch them off remotely. Foster said he plans stricter legislation next year that would require a license to operate advanced GPUs, verified before a GPU can connect. That is a step beyond monitoring into control.

He offered one candid admission. Foster said he had not asked Nvidia why, if tracking is technically possible, the company has not adopted it voluntarily. The question answers itself.

What has Nvidia said in public?

The Semiconductor Industry Association, which counts Nvidia among its members, opposed the bill in March. It called the tracking mandates "new, untested, and potentially infeasible."

Nvidia has also played down the underlying problem. In October, the company told MIT Technology Review that "governments and media have found insignificant diversion of controlled US products," describing smuggling as "a drop in the bucket compared to the ocean of domestic compute China already has." A drop against an ocean is one comparison; the choice of metaphor is doing considerable work.

The capability, however, is partly built. In December 2025, Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that Nvidia had privately demonstrated an optional software update using the time delay in communications with Nvidia-run servers to gauge a chip's location, starting with Blackwell chips. Nvidia said at the time it was "in the process of implementing a new software service" for fleet monitoring, and it denied that its chips contain backdoors.

Nvidia has told Reuters the tool can indicate which country a chip is in. The company would not say whether it could prevent smuggling, MIT Technology Review reported. Location awareness and enforcement, it turns out, are separate products.

Why is this landing now?

The Chip Security Act is one of three chip measures attached to the Senate's version of the fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, alongside the MATCH Act and the AI Overwatch Act. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told Semafor on Thursday there is a "high probability" that Congress will impose more restrictions on chip exports to China. No deal has been reached to keep the measures in the final bill.

Smuggling sits at the center of the scandal that ended Jensen Huang's tenure as Nvidia's chief executive. Megaspeed, the Singapore cloud company whose former executive Alice Huang was reportedly in a relationship with Jensen Huang, has been investigated by US authorities over suspicions it helped Chinese companies obtain restricted chips. Megaspeed has denied smuggling.

A Commerce Department inquiry into Megaspeed was halted after Nvidia's general counsel contacted Commerce agents, The New York Times reported. US officials suspect Alice Huang of spying for Beijing. China denies the allegation.

What comes next?

Congress must decide whether the three measures survive conference on the defense bill. Foster's planned 2027 legislation would move the debate from tracking to licensing. Nvidia's private position, if Foster's account holds, suggests the technical objections may be the easiest part to resolve; the commercial ones will not be.