Exclusive: Nvidia builds location verification tech that could help fight chip smuggling

The feature, which Nvidia has demonstrated privately in recent months but has not yet released, would be a software option that customers could install. It would tap into what are known as the confidential computing capabilities of its graphics processing units (GPUs), the sources said.

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The software was built to allow customers to track a chip’s overall computing performance – a common practice among companies that buy fleets of processors for large data centers – and would use the time delay in communicating with servers run by Nvidia to give a sense of the chip’s location on par with what other internet-based services can provide, according to an Nvidia official.

“We’re in the process of implementing a new software service that empowers data center operators to monitor the health and inventory of their entire AI GPU fleet,” Nvidia said in a statement. “This customer-installed software agent leverages GPU…