Nvidia Mandates Tracking System for Southeast Asian Cloud Partners Amid Chip Smuggling Concerns
Nvidia is requiring Southeast Asian cloud providers to enroll in its Fleet Intelligence tracking program to qualify for official partner status, as U.S. authorities investigate suspected diversions of advanced AI processors to China.
Cloud computing providers across Southeast Asia must now register with Nvidia's Fleet Intelligence system to gain Nvidia Cloud Partner (NCP) designation, according to Bloomberg reporting. The requirement grants Nvidia enhanced oversight of where its AI accelerators operate after leaving the supply chain, as Washington intensifies scrutiny over suspected smuggling networks routing restricted hardware into China. Nvidia declined to comment on the policy.
The NCP status carries significant value for cloud providers, offering Nvidia's public backing and priority access to its highly sought AI chips. This positions Nvidia to leverage those advantages as conditions for participation. Prospective partners seeking the designation must now enroll in Fleet Intelligence, according to sources with knowledge of the updated requirements. Introduced in December, Fleet Management functions primarily as a data centre management tool, collecting data about Nvidia hardware across participating infrastructure, including the precise locations of individual accelerators. This visibility could help Nvidia determine whether its chips remain in legitimate use after exiting the supply chain.
Outside the NCP requirement, participation in the tracking system remains optional, and Nvidia does not automatically obtain location data from all customers running the software. The company has not yet specified whether existing Cloud Partners must enroll to maintain their status or whether the mandate will eventually expand beyond Southeast Asia.
Nvidia's interest in locating its processors is not recent. In December, reporting revealed that Nvidia had created software-based GPU tracking using GPU telemetry and network latency measurements to estimate processor locations. The company characterized the software as a customer-installed agent designed for monitoring hardware health, integrity and inventory.
The technology carries implications beyond routine data centre operations. U.S. policy prohibits Chinese companies from acquiring advanced AI accelerators without authorization, yet authorities estimate billions of dollars in such hardware have reached Chinese buyers through intermediary networks, with Southeast Asia serving as a critical transit hub for these transactions.
A C4ADS investigation previously documented multiple pathways for moving restricted processors into China, encompassing acquisitions through research programs, shell entities and shipments routed via other Southeast Asian nations. The nonprofit's examination of transactions spanning 2022 through 2025 documented $13.4 million in Nvidia A100, H100, and AD102-series GPUs flowing through regional trade channels. The report also connected $4.6 billion in hardware purchases to Singapore-based Megaspeed International.
Megaspeed has emerged as a particularly complicated situation for Nvidia, facing U.S. and Singaporean investigations for over a year regarding suspected chip diversion. Last week, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang addressed his company's relationship with the firm, stating, "completely normal," and adding, "we've studied all their deployments of our GPUs and counted every one." Megaspeed has rejected allegations of impropriety. In April, Megaspeed's Malaysian data centre landlord ended its contract, reassigning 68.4 megawatts of capacity to a different cloud provider.
Megaspeed represents just one instance of the challenges in controlling AI hardware distribution. Earlier this year, U.S. prosecutors charged individuals connected to Super Micro with facilitating the diversion of approximately $2.5 billion in Nvidia-powered servers to China via Southeast Asian intermediaries. The alleged operation included falsified documentation and empty server chassis, with actual components shipped onward following inspections. Super Micro subsequently encountered heightened scrutiny regarding export compliance following these inspections. Nvidia has also reportedly cut half of the Asian firms from its approved buyer roster and instructed cloud providers to maintain at least 51% of their computing services with non-China customers.