The US Wants a "Find My" for AI Chips to Stop Smuggling to China
The Race to Build a "Find My" for AI Chips
Export bans haven't kept advanced GPUs out of China, so Washington is pushing location verification instead. A House committee passed a bill requiring it, and researchers propose ping-based tracking: chips signal trusted landmark servers, which time the round trip to estimate where the chip sits. CSET analysts say it could deter smugglers and generate leads for physical audits, though it can't catch chips that are offline or in transit, and spoofing or key extraction remain real risks. Hardware fingerprinting is one proposed backstop.
They know if they turn this chip on, it's going to start pinging these landmark servers. That could deter some smuggling.