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China Claims Nvidia Built Backdoor Into H20 Chip Designed For Chinese Market (arstechnica.com) 83

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Beijing has summoned Nvidia over alleged security issues with its chips, in a blow to the US company's push to revive sales in the country after Washington granted approval for the export of a made-for-China chip. From a report: China's cyber regulator on Thursday said it had held a meeting with Nvidia over what it called "serious security issues" with the company's artificial intelligence chips.

It said US AI experts had "revealed that Nvidia's computing chips have location tracking and can remotely shut down the technology." The Cyberspace Administration of China requested that Nvidia explain the security problems associated with the H20 chip, which was designed for the Chinese market to comply with US export restrictions, and submit documentation to support their case.

China Claims Nvidia Built Backdoor Into H20 Chip Designed For Chinese Market More | Reply

China Claims Nvidia Built Backdoor Into H20 Chip Designed For Chinese Market

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  • Whether it's a true backdoor or a political accusation, the situation itself is hardly surprising.

    • Re: "China Claims Nvidia Built Backdoor Into H20 C (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Lobotomy656 ( 7554372 ) on Thursday July 31, 2025 @12:23PM (#65558024)
      What do you mean whether? It was proven multiple times that US hardware contains backdoors and we all know who ordered that to happen. I remember Chinese being accused of doing the same thing but I've never seen a security researcher prove it definitely.

    • Whether it's a true backdoor or a political accusation, the situation itself is hardly surprising.

      It's just another reason why China believes it needs to take Taiwan. Accessing the modern FAB plants are just the newest item on a 75+ year old list.

  • My guess is Orangie promised Nvidia they can sell chips to China again if they sneak in snoopware ports. Nvidia probably tried to explain that's hard to pull off, but Orangie replied, "Don't worry, if it goes sour, I got your back, I'll wheel and deal."

    • Re:I have best intuition about this, believe me! (Score:5, Informative)

      by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Thursday July 31, 2025 @11:37AM (#65557894)

      There is 0% Trump knows any technical details about how any of this works. The man has never spoken about any subject where one would say "yeah he seems to have a solid understanding of the concepts here". Seriously, try and find a single clip of Trump being intelligent and knowledgeable about any topic in the last 20 years, it doesn't exist. He can talk for a lot of words but they don't actually say or mean anything when you read them.

      • I though he was good at tax evasion, much better than most American actually.

        • Even there, is there a clip in the last 20 years of Trump speaking intelligently about tax policy, how it works and the broader implications around the issue? Could he argue both sides of it or just a string of Fox news talking points?

          This is an open challenge, seriously try and find it.

          • Re: I have best intuition about this, believe me! (Score:5, Interesting)

            by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Thursday July 31, 2025 @12:17PM (#65558002)

            He's spoken gibberish for a solid decade now and people stand and applaud.

            "Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you're a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it's true! — but when you're a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that's why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we're a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it's not as important as these lives are — nuclear is so powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right, who would have thought? — but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it's four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven't figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it's gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us, this is horrible."

            Had Biden rambled anything close to that he'd have been immediately hospitalized and Kamala sworn in.

            • Don't forget sharks and electic vehicles.

            • You obviously didn't watch Biden's last debate.

              The Biden campaign imploded because your above example is coherent compared to what Biden managed. And it was obvious to EVERYBODY.

            • Yet it was Kamala that had her answers edited for clarity by 60 minutes and not Trump. It was also Biden who was so incoherent that his own party demanded he exit the race due to his disastrous incoherence. I'm not saying this wasn't typical Trump gibberish, but Biden and Kamala being more coherent is not why they lost the election.

              • I am not and would not claim the election came down to that, voters don't care about policy or issues, it's all fun and vibes.

                I know people did not actually watch the debate but Biden faltered on part because he was voting too many facts and figures.

                They like Trump because he's "epic and based"

                • The Democrats had to ask Biden to step down from campaigning after the fog he displayed in his second debate against Trump. These were Democrats asking/compelling their own standing president to stop campaigning. That wasn't because nobody watched the debate. That wasn't because nobody cared about issues. I won't go down the rabbit hole of debating Kamala vs Trump in word salad combat. Biden did not falter because he was 'voting too many facts and figures' that is a delusion. It looked like someone may ha

                  • Look with Biden I would say he was obviously too old to both be the President and campaign and should have stepped aside, that's his mistake. Besides that there is nothing I have ever seen to say Biden was "demented" or had anything incapacity besides being over 80 years old and slowing down.

                    Trump is Trump even if he had dementia we'd never know and the media is far too cowardly to call it out.

                    Kamala however with the way she was treated by the media and the electorate was the real thing to be ashamed of.

              • No amount of editing of Trump's answers will make them make sense, but editing Harris' answers down to simplify them for people deliberately made into idiots by Republican action on education since the Reagan era can make them make more sense to those idiots.

                • You are rambling...
                  They did not edit Trumps speeches, and they edited Kamala's and she still lost. If you think they edited her speech to make it less coherent then you need to lay off the drinkypoo. If you had a point you didn't make it.

            • Re: (Score:1)

              by Tablizer ( 95088 )

              He claims he never drinks, but perhaps he should start. Sobriety isn't working for him.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Shaiku ( 1045292 )

          First of all, that would be his accountants and not him. Second, I don't think so -- whatever loopholes and loss carryovers his bean counters have exploited are probably legal by the tax code, so it's not evasion.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        There is 0% Trump knows any technical details about how any of this works.

        My scenario didn't require Don to understand anything, only that he have the self confidence that he could later conjure up a solution if things fell apart.

        He habitually kicks the can down the road on many things, believing he can shoot from the hip to solve when need be.

        It's why he's not worried about lower interest rates triggering inflation. If by chance he gets his bully wish and inflation spikes, he believes he'll somehow work

      • Re:I have best intuition about this, believe me! (Score:5, Funny)

        by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Thursday July 31, 2025 @12:50PM (#65558078)
        Sir I think you're forgetting president Trump's seminal discussion on the topic of modern cybersecurity and its effect on socioeconomics, to wit:

        "Everything's computer!"

        Now don't you feel silly?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Rinnon ( 1474161 )
        If there is one thing I would say Trump is actually quite good at, it's leading the media around by the nose. Whenever the media focuses on something he doesn't like, he manages to creates a new scandal or say something dramatic and it usually directs attention away from whatever he doesn't like. The current Epstein situation seems to be the first time he isn't having great success with this, but we'll see what actually comes of it in the long run (I suspect not much).

        • I can't even tell how much of that is intentional, I think of the Joker when he says "I just... do things"

          Like Trump practically admitted he sex trafficked an employee to the press. Was that 4D distraction master chess or did he just say a dumb thing and our media does the work for him because they suck shit.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Rinnon ( 1474161 )
            Yeah I'm with you. Personally I think it's a little of column A and a little of column B. I don't think he's a calculating mastermind, I think he shoots from the hip and relies on his instincts. But I do think his instinct for what will distract the media has shown to be fairly accurate; and I do think it's clear that it is his intention to create said distraction.

            • The media loves a shitshow and he continues to give it to them.

              There's a poster I follow on social media and whenever questions about why the media acts this way he has a graphic that says "Because they like Trump and want him to rule us like a king" and it's getting hard to disagree.

              • The media loves a shitshow and he continues to give it to them.

                That's why Trump is President. Elections have become celebrity contests and he is a professional celebrity with years of experience operating against amateurs. He is operating on well tested instincts. Who is more interesting, Kamala Harris or Donald Trump? Or Jeb Bush or Donald Trump to go back to the origins of this shitshow. If you are choosing the star of a four year reality media show, Trump is by far the better choice. Here we are, talking about Trump. He Scores!

      • There is a very long history of this in American (and elsewhere) politics. Remember the congressman saying that the Internet is a "series of tubes?" While trying to promote Obamacare Obama said that a breathalizer is used to treat kids' asthma. Some senator tried to allege that if America put more troops in Guam it might "tip over." Recently Trump's education secretary said repeatedly in a public press conference that they were going to integrate "A1" into education -- though that did make me want some stea

        • Obama misspoke, then immediately corrected himself. The "series of tubes" and Guam statements were purely the confident ignorance displayed by so many politicians, but I don't think Obama is one of them. Just for the record, here is the statement referred to:

          “Everybody knows that it makes no sense that you send a kid to the emergency room for a treatable illness like asthma. They end up taking up a hospital bed. It costs when, if you, they just gave, you gave, treatment early, and they got some trea

      • He seems to be pretty knowledgeable about escaping legal peril - even with 34 felony convictions and a shitload of federal felony indictments he hasn't spent a single night in prison.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      My guess is Orangie promised Nvidia they can sell chips to China again if they sneak in snoopware ports

      The law was passed two months ago.

      U.S. Congressman and physicist Bill Foster plans to introduce a bill that will require advanced AI chipmakers like Nvidia to include a built-in location reporting system.

      https://www.tomshardware.com/p... [tomshardware.com]

      Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas then introduced a legislative measure later in the week.
      and
      However, the Congressman from Illinois wants to go beyond that. He also wants the chips to stop booting if they detect that they do not have the proper export licenses.

      https://www.tomsh [tomshardware.com]

    • Orangie

      No wonder the Netherlands are in love with him.

    • You think nVidia was able to engineer backdoors into the H20 and have the silicon manufactured and shipped in a few weeks? Try again.

    • I expect somebody pulling the strings said that, but somehow I doubt it was the ignoramus who publicly stated he's never heard of Nvidia [tomshardware.com] and has no idea what they make.

  • I don't think there's a real mystery here, but this shit isn't helping our street cred.

  • What the heck do they mean by backdoor? NVidia GPUs are just processors, they run any code you throw at them.

    In any case, if they don't think they are safe they are free to use any other GPU they can get their hands on.

    • Re:Backdoor (Score:5, Informative)

      by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Thursday July 31, 2025 @11:59AM (#65557966)

      Something ala the Intel management engine that phones home with location data.

      • Something ala the Intel management engine that phones home with location data.

        It's easy to freak out about a system that has potential to communicate over networks, but this has been scrutinised by security researchers the world over and while bugs and exploits have been found and fixed and new ones found and fixed, no one has ever shown that the device phones home much less attaches location data to the phone call. That would be something very trivial to prove by security researchers.

      • ME (Score:4, Insightful)

        by JBMcB ( 73720 ) on Thursday July 31, 2025 @04:38PM (#65558630)
        That depends on a black-box microcontroller on the motherboard with direct access to the network adapter, that Intel also makes.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by HiThere ( 15173 )

        The assertion is that it does more than that, that it allows to systems to be remotely disabled.
        OTOH, I've read of precisely such a feature being requested by some who were fearful of AI, so it's not unbelievable (though it would clearly need more than one chip to accomplish this).

    • Re:Backdoor (Score:5, Informative)

      by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Thursday July 31, 2025 @12:17PM (#65558004) Homepage Journal

      In any case, if they don't think they are safe they are free to use any other GPU they can get their hands on.

      In the long-term China is doing just that, by building their own. Cutting the US out of one of the largest growing markets because the US has historically been unwilling to keep spycraft out of its trade goods, so nobody trusts us anymore.

      • China is just as implicated. Not saying either side is right or that the claims are valid, but given that both the US and China are on bad terms it's not surprising that they'd make swipes at each other like this. Cue some US agency "finding" a new Chinese backdoor or some new massive Chinese hacking attempt in 3...2....1.....

    • What the heck do they mean by backdoor? NVidia GPUs are just processors, they run any code you throw at them.

      ...and any code embedded in it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by allo ( 1728082 )

      "are just processors"

      You know that people even got backdoors in harddrive firmware? And on a graphics card there is so much complex tech, that you can do a lot of stuff. And it's connected to the CPU via PCIe. Do you know that not long ago even USB devices could unlock your computer by using DMA to access your RAM to kill the lockscreen?

      A GPU is complex enough to do whatever the manufacturer wants. And much of it can be done in ways that are easily attributed to glitches and bugs in performance optimization

  • NVidia puts a "backdoor" in all chips (Score:5, Informative)

    by laughingskeptic ( 1004414 ) on Thursday July 31, 2025 @11:51AM (#65557942)
    https://docs.nvidia.com/networ... [nvidia.com] ... sounds like the H20 may have had a few extra "features".

    • The DPU is a whole computer that you put inside your computer. And it's made for datacenters, so I wouldn't really be surprised that it has IPMI. It also has its own NIC.

    • There's a difference between having the technical capability to do something and actually doing something. I could murder a person, but I don't. In much the same way the presence of a computer within a computer is something common in most chips released in the past decade. Think Intel Management Engine, AMD Platform Secure Processor (no not just a crypto storage, but so much more).

      But one thing that is easy is snooping on traffic on these devices, and while they all would in theory have the capability of ph

  • ... that they put an AirTag in the packaging.

  • back door (Score:2, Insightful)

    by gary s ( 5206985 )
    SO pot calling the kettle black?

  • In chips that do not have attached network interfaces or space for antennas? What complete nonsense is this?

    • 20 years ago, but now there are computers within the CPU & GPU. These on-chip computers provide remote management systems controlling the actual CPU/GPU and they DO phone home.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Nope. They do not, unless you let them. And when they do, that is exceptionally obvious.

  • It's a ploy to get IP so the Chinese can "verify" that there is no back door.

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