The big picture: The United States has reportedly revived a decades-old investigative tactic to track illegal exports. According to two sources cited by Reuters, US authorities have secretly placed tracking devices inside select shipments of advanced processors from some of the nation's leading chipmakers to monitor whether they were being illegally exported to China.
The publication was not able to determine how often shipments were being tracked or when the operation began, but notes that the US started implementing various sales bans of advanced chips to China in 2022. The report did state that not all shipments are being tracked; only those that are "under investigation" are subject to the program.
Five other sources involved in the AI server supply chain also said they were aware of such a program, adding that shipments from companies including Super Micro and Dell – which use chips from AMD and Nvidia – had been under surveillance.
Two of the server supply chain sources recounted a 2024 incident involving a shipment of Dell servers powered by Nvidia hardware. The sources said larger trackers were used on the shipping containers while smaller devices were tucked away inside the packages. Some trackers were even hidden within the servers themselves, the sources added.
Another person claims to have seen videos and photos of trackers being removed from shipments, and said the larger variants were roughly as big as a smartphone.
Sources said the US Department of Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security is often involved in such operations. Occasionally, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Homeland Security Investigations will be brought into the mix, the people said. None of the organizations commented on the matter, and the Chinese foreign ministry claimed it was not aware of the situation.
Dell told Reuters it was not aware of a US government initiative to place trackers in its product shipments. Super Micro said it doesn't disclose "security practices and policies in place to protect our worldwide operations, partners, and customers." Dell declined to comment, and AMD did not respond to a request for comment.
Image credit: Andy Li, Zalfa Imani