A new ‘location verification feature’ has been developed by Nvidia, specifically for its AI (data center) GPUs, which is capable of indicating which country the chips are operating in. The move has the potential to prevent its latest Blackwell AI chips from being smuggled into countries where export is banned or restricted, such as China.

This is according to a report from Reuters, and it relates to Nvidia’s recently announced ‘Data Center Fleet Management’ software, an opt-in service that enables customers to monitor the health of their entire AI GPU fleet. The software essentially gives Nvidia’s cloud partners and enterprises a central insights dashboard to help boost GPU uptime. It is designed to monitor GPU usage, configuration, and errors.

Nvidia unveils new optional software for data center fleet management

The opt-in software agent uses the telemetry data and “confidential computing capabilities” of Nvidia’s GPUs to track data related to the GPU fleet. From there, communication latency between the GPU and Nvidia’s servers is used to estimate the location of the chip, which is said to be similarly accurate to IP geolocation.

With the service, data center operators will be able to:

• Track spikes in power usage to keep within energy budgets while maximizing performance per watt.
• Monitor utilization, memory bandwidth and interconnect health across the fleet.
• Detect hotspots and airflow issues early to avoid thermal throttling and premature component aging.
• Confirm consistent software configurations and settings to ensure reproducible results and reliable operation.
• Spot errors and anomalies to identify failing parts early.

Source: Nvidia

The company assures its customers that “NVIDIA GPUs do not have hardware tracking technology, kill switches and backdoors” – this is the second time it has addressed security concerns of this nature. The location-tracking tech is one such concern, and its implementation comes following a bill introduced in the U.S. earlier this year that requires AI chip manufacturers to implement some kind of location verification technology. However, Nvidia has achieved location tracing via software, not hardware, though it goes without saying that the opt-in nature of this service won’t be able to track those who shy away from it.

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Jack Goodall

At PC Guide, Jack is mostly responsible for reporting on hardware deals. He also specializes in monitors, TVs, and headsets and can be found putting his findings together in a review or best-of guide.