Key Points
- U.S. authorities are secretly putting location trackers in some AI chip shipments.
- The tactic is aimed at catching smugglers who are illegally diverting the chips to China.
- The trackers are being used on select shipments from major manufacturers that are already under investigation.
- The devices are often hidden in the packaging of the servers and sometimes within the hardware itself.
U.S. authorities are secretly placing location trackers in shipments of advanced AI chips to stop them from being illegally smuggled to China. According to sources with direct knowledge of the tactic, this previously unreported law enforcement measure is being used on select shipments that are already under investigation for being at high risk of illegal diversion.
The goal is to catch individuals and companies that are violating strict U.S. export controls. These rules are designed to keep powerful American technology, which could be used to supercharge China’s military, out of the hands of geopolitical rivals.
While the trackers are a decades-old tool used to track items such as airplane parts, their use in semiconductor investigations has ramped up in recent years.
Several sources in the AI server supply chain say they are aware of trackers being hidden in shipments from major manufacturers like Dell and Super Micro. The devices are often hidden in the packaging of the servers, and sometimes even inside the server hardware itself.
The news sheds light on the extreme measures the U.S. is taking to enforce its tech export bans, even as the Trump administration has been considering relaxing some of those same restrictions.
Resellers and smugglers are aware of the tactic. China-based resellers say they now regularly inspect diverted shipments for the devices. A recent U.S. court filing even revealed text messages between alleged smugglers, with one telling the other to “pay attention to see if there is a tracker on it, you must look for it carefully.”
