A new bipartisan bill from US Democratic Representative Bill Foster aims to crack down on the smuggling of Nvidia chips into China. The lawmaker plans to table the legislation in the coming weeks, which will require regulators to introduce measures to verify the location of the AI chips, and stop them from booting up if they are not properly licensed under export controls.
Despite being subject to increasingly tight restrictions in recent months, reports have proliferated that Nvidia semiconductor chips – which are integral to the development of AI technology – are still being smuggled into China. In April, the Trump Administration placed its first “major limits” on Nvidia sales outside the US.
Since the emergence of DeepSeek in January, the US-China AI race has reached fever pitch, with President Trump desperate to see off competition from the superpower.
US Lawmaker Targets Nvidia Chip Smuggling
Democratic lawmaker Bill Foster aims to stop the smuggling of Nvidia semiconductor chips into China with new legislation, reports Reuters. The representative is set to table a bill in the coming weeks that will allow the chips to be tracked and have their location verified.
The bill has bipartisan support, with lawmakers on both sides of the House eager to stem the supply of chips, which are used to develop AI technology, to one of its biggest rivals in the AI space.
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If passed, the bill would direct regulators to mandate the tracking of chips, as well as preventing them from booting up if they’re not properly licensed under current export controls. Reportedly, the technology to track and verify the location of semiconductor chips already exists, with much of it already built into the Nvidia chips.
Chipmaker In the Spotlight – Again
This is by no means the first attempt that the US government has made to control the flow of Nvidia chips into China. In 2022, the Biden Administration introduced the first such restrictions, which the company responded to by modifying its H100 chip to meet new regulations. It went on to become a China-specific product.
Most recently, in April 2025, the Trump Administration announced its own measures. As per the restrictions, the sale of some Nvidia chips to China without a license is now prohibited. This came in the wake of a letter from Elizabeth Warren, Democratic Senator of Massachusetts, urging the Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, to move quickly to stop Chinese tech companies from stockpiling the chip.
Despite this, numerous outlets have documented the continued passage of Nvidia chips into China.
US-China AI Hostilities Show No Signs of Abating
The early months of President Trump’s second term have been characterized by an escalating feud with China, of which AI has been one of the key battlegrounds.
In January, the release of DeepSeek sent shockwaves through the AI landscape. Then, in March, a Chinese startup known as Butterfly Effect debuted the world’s first fully autonomous AI, Manus AI, to further challenge the US’s supremacy where the technology is concerned. Meanwhile, the president set out his own ambitions with Project Stargate, a new company that aims to be the “largest AI infrastructure project in history.”
The president, along with bipartisan lawmakers on Capitol Hill, hopes that this latest legislation can put a sizable dent in its geopolitical rival’s technological prospects.
