On Friday 6 November, Bloomberg reported, citing anonymous sources, that Nvidia has tightened oversight of AI accelerators sold in Southeast Asia. The information comes from Bloomberg’s story, which several publications have summarised. Nvidia declined to comment to Bloomberg.

The requirement applies to companies in the region seeking Nvidia Cloud Partner (NCP) status. Official cloud partner status brings Nvidia’s public endorsement and priority access to chips. Nvidia is using the status as an incentive to get more companies to adopt the otherwise voluntary Fleet Intelligence system, the sources said.

The system also collects location data

Fleet Intelligence is primarily a data centre management tool. In a technical description from May, cited by TechRepublic, Nvidia says customers install software on their servers that sends data on GPU utilisation, health and configuration to Nvidia’s cloud service. Nvidia says the software only reads data and does not change settings.

The system also collects the location of individual components, Bloomberg reported. Last December, Tom’s Hardware reported that Nvidia had developed software that estimates a GPU’s location from its usage data and network latency measurements.

By default, however, the system does not require participants to share location data with Nvidia or the US government. An Nvidia representative previously told Bloomberg that authorities wanting the data would contact users directly. Nvidia did not say whether the requirement applies to existing partners or other regions.

Dispute over Megaspeed’s chips

The US largely bars Chinese companies from buying Nvidia’s advanced AI chips without a licence. Officials nonetheless estimate that billions of dollars’ worth of hardware has reached China, mainly through smuggling networks in Southeast Asia, Bloomberg reported. Some policymakers in Washington are frustrated that Nvidia has repeatedly missed warning signs. Nvidia says it complies with the law and considers identifying violators a job for the authorities.

Singapore-based data centre company Megaspeed International has been under investigation by the US and Singapore for more than a year and denies wrongdoing. Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang said last week that ‘we’ve studied all their deployments of our GPUs and counted every one’. Last year, Nvidia said it had identified ‘essentially’ all products shipped to Megaspeed.

Two Southeast Asian data centre operators have disputed Nvidia’s information on chip locations, Bloomberg reported, and Nvidia has not said whether it has carried out the new inspections it promised. TechRepublic notes that counting chips alone does not prove compliance with export controls. Megaspeed is already an NCP partner, so it is unclear whether the new requirement applies to it.

This year, Nvidia removed half of the Asian buyers it had pre-approved, Bloomberg reported. The Financial Times first reported that Nvidia has told customers to rent no more than half of their Nvidia computing capacity to Chinese companies. The guidance covers future contracts, not existing leases, the FT said. Washington, however, generally allows Chinese companies to use accelerators owned by others abroad. The Information has reported that the guidance has not been made mandatory, TechRepublic wrote.