Nvidia reiterates its chips have no backdoors, urges US against location verification

Nvidia has published a blog post reiterating that its chips did not have backdoors or kill switches and appealed to US policymakers to forgo such ideas saying it would be a “gift” to hackers and hostile actors.

The blog post, which was published on Tuesday in both English and Chinese, comes a week after the Chinese government summoned the U.S. artificial intelligence (AI) chip giant to a meeting saying it was concerned by a US proposal for advanced chips sold abroad to be equipped with tracking and positioning functions.

The White House and both houses of US Congress have proposed the idea of requiring US chip firms to include location verification technology with their chips to prevent them from being diverted to countries where US export laws ban sales. The separate bills and White House recommendation have not become a formal rule, and no technical requirements have been established.

“Embedding backdoors and kill switches into chips would be a gift to hackers and hostile actors. It would undermine global digital infrastructure and fracture trust in US technology,” Nvidia said. It had said last week its products have no backdoors that would allow remote access or control.

A backdoor refers to a hidden method of bypassing normal authentication or security controls.

Nvidia emphasised that “there is no such thing as a ‘good’ secret backdoor – only dangerous vulnerabilities that need to be eliminated.”