A new legislative proposal is on the horizon as concerns mount over the unauthorized transfer of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chips to China. U.S. Representative Bill Foster is preparing to introduce a bill aimed at ensuring AI processors — particularly those from leading manufacturers like Nvidia — can be geographically tracked after sale and disabled if found to be in violation of export restrictions.
This initiative comes amid growing scrutiny over how high-performance chips, critical to AI development, are reportedly making their way into China despite strict U.S. export controls. These controls have evolved under successive administrations to prevent strategic technologies from supporting potential adversaries.
Foster, a former physicist and chip designer, believes the technology required to monitor the physical location of these chips already exists and could be implemented with minimal disruption. He’s calling for U.S. regulators to draft rules around two main goals: verifying the physical whereabouts of regulated chips, and enabling remote deactivation if chips are found to be used without proper licensing.
“There are credible indications that smuggling of high-end chips is not just a theoretical risk — it’s already happening at scale,” Foster said in a statement. “We need to ensure these technologies are not unknowingly fueling adversarial AI research or weapons development.”
The need for oversight intensified after reports emerged linking banned U.S.-made AI chips to projects like DeepSeek — a Chinese-developed AI platform seen as a formidable rival to American models. Investigations in jurisdictions like Singapore have also uncovered attempts to circumvent export controls by repackaging or disguising servers containing restricted components.
The proposed solution involves chips periodically communicating with a secure server to confirm their location using signal latency — a method proven effective in enterprise environments. Companies like Google reportedly already utilize such systems for internal AI hardware, ensuring their chip networks remain secure and compliant.
Foster’s proposal is expected to mandate the U.S. Department of Commerce to develop regulations within six months of enactment. While implementing a system to prevent unauthorized chip boot-up would be technically more complex, Foster believes now is the time to engage chipmakers on practical solutions.
The legislation has received bipartisan backing. Lawmakers from both political parties see chip tracking as a proactive tool to enforce export laws and prevent sensitive hardware from contributing to geopolitical rivals’ military or AI capabilities.
