Nvidia Told Lawmaker Chip Tracking Is Feasible, Congressman Says
Rep. Bill Foster says Nvidia privately agreed anti-smuggling chip tracking could work, even as its industry group publicly called the idea potentially infeasible.
Representatives of Nvidia privately told a member of Congress that it would be technically possible to track the location of advanced AI chips to stop them from being smuggled to China, according to the lawmaker. That account, first reported by MIT Technology Review, conflicts with the semiconductor industry’s public argument that such tracking may not be workable. It comes as Congress weighs whether to write chip-tracking requirements into this year’s defense bill while Nvidia is already under heavy scrutiny in Washington.
What happened
Bill Foster, a Democratic congressman from Illinois who sits on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, told MIT Technology Review in an interview on Thursday that Nvidia staff had signaled agreement during technical discussions about the Chip Security Act. Foster is a cosponsor of the bill, which would require location checks for advanced AI chips before they are exported.
According to Foster, the company’s representatives seemed to accept that the bill’s safeguards could be built, though he said they “never put anything in writing.” MIT Technology Review reported that Nvidia did not respond to requests for comment on his account, and the company has not said anything similar in public.
The Semiconductor Industry Association, the main U.S. chip industry trade group and one Nvidia belongs to, came out against the bill in March 2026. It described the tracking mandates as “new, untested, and potentially infeasible,” MIT Technology Review reported.
What the bill would do
The Chip Security Act was introduced in May 2025. Its House sponsors include Foster and Bill Huizenga, a Republican congressman from Michigan. Under the bill, the Commerce Department would have to require location verification for advanced AI chips. Companies could meet that requirement in a few ways:
- inspections of the facilities where chips are installed;
- attestations from the companies operating them;
- ping-based systems, in which a chip sends a location signal when it comes online.
The ping-based approach is considered the hardest to get around. MIT Technology Review noted that the Center for Security and Emerging Technology, a Georgetown University policy research group, concluded in September that it would also be the most cost-effective option. The bill has a limit, though. It would show where chips are but would not let anyone shut down a chip found to have been smuggled. Foster said he plans to introduce stricter legislation next year that would require licenses to operate advanced chips, with each license checked before a chip could connect.
Nvidia already has some tracking ability. In December 2025 it announced Fleet Intelligence, a tool that lets customers monitor chip performance across data centers, and it confirmed to Reuters that the tool could show which country chips are in. The Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank, said in an analysis this week that the system is voluntary, covers only Nvidia’s cloud partners, and is not switched on by default. When asked in October whether the tool could prevent smuggling, Nvidia did not answer directly. It argued instead that diverted U.S. products are small next to China’s own computing capacity, according to MIT Technology Review.
Why it matters now
Scrutiny of Nvidia has grown since reports that Jensen Huang, the company’s co-founder, who has since stepped down as chief executive, had an affair with a woman linked to Megaspeed. U.S. intelligence reportedly identified the woman as a Chinese spy, which Beijing rejects. Megaspeed is a Singapore-based company that rents out computing power across Southeast Asia and is under investigation over suspected smuggling of advanced chips to China. Megaspeed denies wrongdoing, and no charges have been filed, the Atlantic Council noted.
The analysts wrote that Megaspeed has become Nvidia’s largest buyer in Southeast Asia since 2023. They said it reportedly imported at least $4.6 billion in Nvidia technology between 2023 and 2025. The New York Times has reported that a Commerce Department inquiry into the company was halted after Nvidia intervened, according to MIT Technology Review.
The Chip Security Act is one of three chip-related measures in the Senate’s version of the fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, the annual bill that sets defense policy. The South China Morning Post reported that the other two are the AI Overwatch Act, which would give Congress more oversight of advanced chip exports, and the MATCH Act, which would push U.S. allies to stop selling chipmaking equipment to China. Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, said Democrats would work to make sure those provisions “make it into the final version” of the bill. Foster wrote on X that it was “time to get it across the finish line,” the Post reported.
What comes next
Negotiators still have to merge the House and Senate versions of the defense bill, and Congress is expected to pass it by the end of the year. President Donald Trump has not publicly endorsed the chip measures, according to the Post. China’s Foreign Ministry has called the espionage allegations unfounded and said the bills turn trade and technology into weapons.
Foster told MIT Technology Review that he did not ask Nvidia why it has not adopted chip tracking voluntarily if the technology works. He said he expects the controversy around the company to add political pressure on chipmakers to verify where their products end up.
