May 5 - A U.S. congressman is looking to tighten the leash on where powerful AI chips, like those made by Nvidia (NVDA, Financial), end up, following reports they're being smuggled into China despite export bans.
Representative Bill Foster, a Democrat from Illinois and a former physicist, is drafting a bill that would make chipmakers use built-in tracking tools to verify where their chips go after sale. He says many of these high-powered AI chips already have the tech baked in.
The idea is to give regulators the tools to trace chips sold under export control licenses—and even prevent unapproved ones from working at all. The U.S. Department of Commerce would have six months to roll out the rules if the bill passes.
Foster isn't going it alone. The bill has backing from both sides of the aisle, with support from Representatives Raja Krishnamoorthi and John Moolenaar of the House Select Committee on China. Foster said there's credible evidence, some not yet public, of large-scale chip smuggling already happening.
Nvidia, which has argued it can't track chips after they're sold, declined to comment. The bill has taken on new urgency after reports that China's DeepSeek used banned Nvidia chips to build advanced AI systems.
