NVIDIA Denies Installing Secret Tracking Devices in AI Chip Shipments Amid New Report

Whoa, so let’s talk Nvidia and the whole GPU drama. You know Nvidia, right? The big cheese in AI accelerators. They’ve got like, 90% of the market or something. Anyway, they’re in a bit of a pickle, trying to keep both China and the US happy. It’s like, "Hey, US wants this, but China wants that." You could say they’re caught between a rock and a really hard place. No idea why geopolitics always get so messy.

So, the fuss? It’s all about Nvidia’s H20 AI GPU. Super popular in China. Chinese companies are like, "Gimme!" trying to narrow the gap with the US in AI. Even with gazillions of orders lined up, Beijing’s a bit iffy about these chips pouring in. Somewhere in the middle of all this, Reuters dropped a bombshell about some sneaky trackers.

Trackers? Really? Yep, hidden in shipments from Dell and Super Micro carrying Nvidia and AMD chips. But not straight to China—more like, "Oops, maybe they could end up there." Some unnamed insiders blabbed about it, saying, "Well, yeah, it’s a thing."

Nvidia, on its part, is doing the "Hey, not us!" dance. They swear up and down they’re innocent, no clandestine gadgets in their GPUs. Dell’s pretending ignorance too. Super Micro? Tight-lipped. Their security practices are like a magician’s secret.

Trackers in shipments are old school, but it’s not the kind of attention Nvidia needs right now. They’re keen to restart H20 GPU exports to China while juggling all these security hiccups.

And that H20 GPU story with China? Man, where do I even start? So, it’s a watered-down chip made ’cause the US government said, "Nope, banned the stronger stuff." Trump even called it "obsolete." Rude, right? They banned it in April 2025; Nvidia lost a gazillion bucks. Then in July, boom, Jensen Huang (Nvidia’s head honcho) cut a deal with Trump to sell those chips to China again.

And wouldn’t you know it, Nvidia goes and orders 300,000 more chips. Am I the only one feeling a chip-slip? But then Beijing freaks out over national security, which got David Reber Jr. (Nvidia’s security guy) all defensive in a blog post. He was like, "Chill out. No sneaky stuff here."

Chinese companies are pressured into dumping H20 chips anyway. And then America’s like, “Well, pay us 15% from the China sales,” dragging AMD into the mix too. Yeah, that’s legit—a total head-scratcher.

Where does it all lead? Honestly, who knows? Nvidia hopes to resume shipping soon, but with both the US and China on edge, we’re just watching this tech soap opera unfold, popcorn in hand.