Nvidia privately said chip tracking is possible, as a report finds GPU fingerprints in Chinese models
Follow-up to Sunday Nov 8: US-approved Nvidia chip buyer in China has an empty officeRemember Sunday's token about a US-approved Nvidia chip buyer in China with an empty office? The chip question now gets sharper. MIT Technology Review reports that Nvidia representatives told Rep. Bill Foster it would be technically possible to track chips, as the Chip Security Act asks, to fight smuggling.
At the same time, an industry group publicly called those measures "potentially infeasible." So, possible in private, maybe impossible in public. Separately, a post titled "Chinese frontier AI models carry the fingerprint of export-controlled GPUs" got 296 points on Hacker News. Export-controlled means the US forbids selling those chips to China. Our sources do not give the method, so treat it as a claim for now.
With Huang gone and Congress investigating Nvidia's China sales, these questions will likely come up on Wednesday.
Rules on AI chips only work if someone can check where the chips go. If tracking is possible, the debate is no longer about technology, it is about will. And again, we learn this after the fact.
