Nvidia has developed new software to monitor the usage of its advanced AI chips. This decision comes as the company gets more and more questions about whether its most powerful processors are getting to markets that are difficult to get into.
Some reports say that some Chinese AI companies may have gotten Nvidia chips that are against the law through illegal means. The chipmaker has said in public that these claims of smuggling are “far-fetched.” This development happens just as Nvidia gets the go-ahead from the U.S. government to sell a different set of chips to China.
Navigating Nvidia’s new rules in the tech race
Nvidia has developed software to track the location of its AI graphics processing units (GPUs). A report from Reuters says that the technology can figure out a chip’s general location by looking at communication delays between servers and tracking how well computers are working.
Customers will be able to get this optional software first for Nvidia’s newest Blackwell chips. The company said in a statement that it is a service that helps data center operators keep an eye on the health and inventory of their AI GPU fleets.
These steps come after The Information made serious claims that the Chinese AI startup DeepSeek trained its models with thousands of Nvidia Blackwell chips that were smuggled in. The report detailed a complex scheme whereby chips were dispatched to approved data centers in various countries, only to be disassembled and transported piecemeal to China.
Nvidia has strongly denied these claims. A spokesperson for the company said they have not seen any proof of “phantom data centers” that were built to trick its partners and then moved to other locations.
Recently, President Trump said that Nvidia could sell its H200 AI chips to approved customers in China. This changed the dynamics of the ongoing tension. The U.S. government will get 25% of the sales, though, as part of this deal.
It is important to remember that this approval only applies to the older H200 chips and not the newer, more powerful Blackwell processors. Analysts say that this policy is meant to meet some of China’s need for high-end computing power while also trying to slow down the growth of Chinese competitors.
In the end, Nvidia has to deal with many different pressures. Nvidia is implementing new software to monitor its products in response to smuggling rumors. It is also publicly denying any claims it finds unsubstantiated and adjusting to a new policy that lets it sell some chips to China under a new profit-sharing model.
The global race for AI leadership is still going on, so we don’t know how well the tracking technology works or if it makes regulators feel better.
