Stephen Warwick Social Links Navigation News Editor Stephen is Tom's Hardware's News Editor with almost a decade of industry experience covering technology, having worked at TechRadar, iMore, and even Apple over the years. He has covered the world of consumer tech from nearly every angle, including supply chain rumors, patents, and litigation, and more. When he's not at work, he loves reading about history and playing video games.
bit_user It'd be interesting if they could integrate some sort of acceleration-based fuse in their consumer chips, which would disable them if they were launched in something like a missile. Not sure it'd work for drones, though. At least, not the propeller-powered ones. Reply
wwenze1 bit_user said: It'd be interesting if they could integrate some sort of acceleration-based fuse in their consumer chips, which would disable them if they were launched in something like a missile. Not sure it'd work for drones, though. At least, not the propeller-powered ones. I would just turn the chip off during launch and turn it back on during flight. Reply
bit_user wwenze1 said: I would just turn the chip off during launch and turn it back on during flight. That's not how a fuse works. A fuse is something that actually breaks . And if it's mechanical, then it doesn't matter whether the chip is powered on when the acceleration happens. Reply
justrudi While I agree with that idea and with another commenter, this would also disable Jetsons in Ukrainian drones that are simply defending the country. Jetsons needs to be programmed, connected, adjusted for time and GPS, I think software limit could help to disable for some time. However, there was report from about 2 years ago that russian military institutes are buying these with NVIDIA employees knowing from smaller countries. It is just like when Kazakhstan suddenly orders 20x times more than usual. This is an easy way to see through balance sheets and invoices, thus possible to limit the supply. This is literally how russia keeps buying stuff that is not supposed to get there. If there were only business incentive to stop that and someone who is enforcing sanctions, not just writes them off. Reply
bit_user justrudi said: While I agree with that idea and with another commenter, this would also disable Jetsons in Ukrainian drones No, because this is something they could put only in the consumer versions of the chips, which was Jensen's explanation of how they ended up in Russia. If you're sold the military version, it wouldn't have the fuses. justrudi said: However, there was report from about 2 years ago that russian military institutes are buying these with NVIDIA employees knowing from smaller countries. It is just like when Kazakhstan suddenly orders 20x times more than usual. This is an easy way to see through balance sheets and invoices, thus possible to limit the supply. This is literally how russia keeps buying stuff that is not supposed to get there. If there were only business incentive to stop that and someone who is enforcing sanctions, not just writes them off. True, there should be some kind of financial penalty that's applied to Nvidia, in a "no-fault" fashion, that just says for each time their chips are found in sanctioned military ordinance or equipment, they're fined some small fraction of their global revenues. That would get their attention. Reply
derekullo bit_user said: No, because this is something they could put only in the consumer versions of the chips, which was Jensen's explanation of how they ended up in Russia. If you're sold the military version, it wouldn't have the fuses. True, there should be some kind of financial penalty that's applied to Nvidia, in a "no-fault" fashion, that just says for each time their chips are found in sanctioned military ordinance or equipment, they're fined some small fraction of their global revenues. That would get their attention. That only promotes malicious parties to acquire more of Nvidia's tech while also buying on the cheap an ETF that shorts Nvidia, like NVD, before announcing the acquisition … presumably on X. Now they have the Nvidia chips at effectively a discount ! Reply
bit_user derekullo said: That only promotes malicious party's to acquire more of Nvidia's tech while also buying on the cheap an ETF that shorts Nvidia, like NVD, before announcing the acquisition … presumably on X. Now they have the Nvidia chips at effectively a discount ! I'm not sure the penalty would be so high that this would work in practice. You also couldn't predict exactly when and how many such chips would be discovered in sanctioned weapons and military tech. In other words, there'd be much quicker & easier ways to make money. As for the sanctioned party, they already have plenty of incentives to acquire the chips. I'm not saying it's fool-proof, but the idea is to give Nvidia a more immediate and direct reason to care. If we truly believe in markets, then shouldn't we try to utilize market-based solutions to these problems as much as possible? Reply
excalibur1814 "We need chips and shizz for our drones!" "Sure, how many?" "Many!" Cha-ching. Sure, yeah, every company is going to say, "Oh, but please don't use our stuff for bad, bad things!" Reply
Tanakoi Any time Greenpeace is involved, you can be sure they're on the wrong side of an issue. Funny that Greenpeace never targeted the presence of US and Western chips in Iranian drones and missiles, even when those drones were killing Jewish civilians in Israel bit_user said: True, there should be some kind of financial penalty that's applied to Nvidia, in a "no-fault" fashion, that just says for each time their chips are found in sanctioned military ordinance or equipment, they're fined some small fraction of their global revenues. That would get their attention. Yes, and violate every tenet of Western justice for the last several centuries. NVidia isn't violating any laws or selling chips to Russia. Third party brokers buy these chips, and tranship them — often through many different countries. What if we fine YOU if we find out that a graphics card you sold on Ebay to an address in Boise, ID was then shipped to Moscow? Just to "get your attention", of course. Reply
bit_user Tanakoi said: NVidia isn't violating any laws or selling chips to Russia. Third party brokers buy these chips, and tranship them — often through many different countries. What if we fine YOU if we find out that a graphics card you sold on Ebay to an address in Boise, ID was then shipped to Moscow? Just to "get your attention", of course. You're missing the point, which is to incentivize them to innovate features like the acceleration fuse I mentioned that would make them useless in such military hardware. It wouldn't have to kick in immediately, but an unwillingness to even consider both carrot and stick approaches means failing to harness the power of the market, in keeping dual-use technologies out of sanctioned countries. And it's not just Russia we should be concerned about, as you seem to appreciate. Reply
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- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/jensen-huang-nvidia-gtc-keynote-disrupted-by-greenpeace-protest-over-chips-in-russian-drones-what-are-you-doing-about-that-heckler-demands-before-being-thrown-out#main
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