The US government is secretly embedding trackers into some batches of servers with advanced AI chips in an attempt to determine how the chips are illegally smuggled into China, Reuters reported, citing sources.
The trackers allow the US government to build cases against companies that profit from violating the country's export restrictions. According to sources, the tracking devices were found in servers from Super Micro and Dell, which contain advanced NVIDIA and AMD chips.
Trackers are usually hidden in the packaging, but it is not known which parties are involved in installing them and where along the way they are placed. In one case from 2024, a shipment of Dell servers with NVIDIA chips had two tracking devices placed on them — one on the shipping boxes, and another, smaller one, inside the packaging and even on the servers themselves.
One source said he had seen images and videos of trackers being removed from packages by resellers of Dell and Super Micro servers, in some cases the devices were about the size of smartphones.
Super Micro said in a statement to the media that it does not disclose its "security practices and policies in place to protect our global operations, partners and customers." Dell, meanwhile, said in a statement that the company was "not aware of the U.S. government's initiative to place trackers in its product shipments."
The US has imposed export restrictions on advanced semiconductors to China since 2022, but they are often circumvented. In 2024, it was reported that $12 billion worth of semiconductors were smuggled from South Korea to China. The US government is aware of these violations and promised in January 2024 to close all loopholes, but they are still present.
In early August, it was also reported that the US had arrested two Chinese nationals who were illegally transporting artificial intelligence chips, including the NVIDIA H100, to China. It is estimated that they managed to export semiconductors worth tens of millions of dollars.