Dominic Preston is a news director with more than a decade of experience in journalism. He worked previously at Android Police as well as Technology Advisor.
Nvidia’s chief security officer published a blog posting insisting that their GPUs “do not and do not have kill switches and rear doors.” This comes amid pressure on both sides of Pacific, as some US lawmakers are pushing Nvidia for backdoors in AI chips to be granted to the government, while Chinese officials claim that they already exist.
David Reber Jr.’s post appears to be directed at US legislators. In May, a bipartisan group Introduced the Chip Security Actwhich would require Nvidia, as well as other manufacturers, to include tracking technology in order to identify when chips were illegally transported internationally. The bill leaves the door open to further security measures including remote kill switchesNvidia expects to be granted permission to sell certain AI chips again in China. However, its most powerful hardware remains under strict US export control there and elsewhere.
Some pundits and policymakers have proposed hardware ‘kill switch’ or built in controls that can remotely disable GPUs, without user knowledge and permission, to mitigate the risk of misuse. Reber Jr. wrote this in response to a Chinese probe that was already launched over alleged “loopholes” and “backdoor” vulnerabilities found in the H20 chip that had been sold in that country.
Reber Jr. says that there is no such thing a “good” secret backdoor, but only dangerous vulnerabilities that must be eliminated. He calls kill switches “an invitation to disaster” and makes it clear that his intended audience are US policymakers. “That’s a bad policy.” It’s a reaction that would irreparably damage America’s national security and economic interests. Chinese chip companies are improving their production and performance capacity as China searches for an alternative. This raises the possibility of Huawei usurping Nvidia in the market, a company which knows all about losing market shares over alleged government-access.
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- Dominic Preston
