Beijing summons Nvidia over alleged backdoors in China-bound AI chips
China's internet watchdog has hauled Nvidia in for a grilling over alleged backdoors in its H20 chips, the latest twist in the increasingly paranoid semiconductor spat between Washington and Beijing.
Nvidia was recently given the thumbs-up to resume sales of its made-for-China H20 AI chips after Washington quietly reversed an earlier export ban on the silicon. The Trump administration originally imposed the ban in April over fears the kit could wind up powering Chinese military systems.
However, Nvidia's return to the Chinese market looks set to come with strings attached, as Beijing has once again sharpened its scrutiny of foreign silicon slipping past the firewall.
In a statement issued Thursday, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) claimed there were "serious security vulnerabilities" in Nvidia's high-performance computing chips, which are widely used for AI workloads.
The warning presumably comes in response to the introduction of the Chip Security Act, which calls for mandatory GPS-style tracking to be embedded in every AI chip exported from the United States. According to the CAC's statement, American AI experts had already revealed that Nvidia's chips contain mature "tracking and positioning" and "remote shutdown" technologies, fueling fears in Beijing that such features could be exploited to monitor or disable Chinese systems.
The CAC said it had interviewed Nvidia to discuss suspected backdoor vulnerabilities and demanded that the US chip giant "explain the security risks" and provide "relevant supporting materials." The agency cited provisions in the country's Cybersecurity Law, Data Security Law, and Personal Information Protection Law as the legal basis for the intervention.
https://www.theregister.com/2025/07/31/beijing_nvidia_backdoors/
