Proposal Explorer

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Chip registries and manufacturing records

Attack testing records published testing for this use. It does not by itself show independent review, a formal proof or that a deployed system is secure.

• Chip registries and manufacturing records: Analysis
• Bandwidth limits and compartmentalization, RAND secure inference data center (SIDC) design: Analysis

Family findings

• Bandwidth limits and compartmentalization

  Context for RAND secure inference data center (SIDC) design. Findings from the mechanism family appear here as context. They apply to an implementation only when its own record lists them, under the conditions stated there.

  • Low-communication training reduces the bandwidth training needs in Bandwidth limits and compartmentalization

    DiLoCo matched fully synchronous training on 8 workers while communicating 500 times less. Rahman writes that this family of methods theoretically allows large-scale training with less than 100 Mbps. Lucid includes these methods in its bounds, but notes that extreme activation compression, architectures with unusually small inter-layer widths, or modular paradigms could erode the margin. ^{7 8 9}

    Open question · Theoretical argument. On the record

  • Operator control of pod routing collapses the bound in Bandwidth limits and compartmentalization

    Lucid's analysis finds that if the operator can freely assign pods to routers, it could dedicate a whole cell of 100 or more pods to one pipeline stage. The bound then falls to about 90–220x uncompressed and as low as about 25x with compression. The proposed mitigation, auditor-controlled random assignment that is periodically re-randomized, has not been implemented. ⁹

    Known failure · Theoretical argument · Significant · Open. On the record

  • Undeclared local storage raises per-pod capacity in Bandwidth limits and compartmentalization

    More memory or storage per pod helps an adversary. Lucid requires per-pod storage to be declared, capped and physically inspected. ⁹

    Scope limitation · Theoretical argument. On the record

  • Training within one pod is not covered in Bandwidth limits and compartmentalization

    Lucid's bounds concern pre-training models larger than the pods are sized for. Training models that fit in one pod, fine-tuning and reinforcement-learning post-training within one pod are outside the modelled threat. ⁹

    Scope limitation · Open question. On the record

  • Parallel scale-up switches are hard enforcement points in Bandwidth limits and compartmentalization

    In GB200 topologies, GPUs reach GPUs in other nodes through NVSwitches without a NIC on the path. Amodo notes that limits are hard to enforce there because many switches work in parallel, so compromising one or two would bypass the limit. ¹⁰

    Known failure · Theoretical argument · Significant · Open. On the record

Open significant failures

1 failure in 1 mechanism

• Documents and serial numbers can be forged in Chip registries and manufacturing records

  Avellar and Grunewald note that export documents can be forged, that companies can hide information behind obscure corporate structures, and that it may be possible to forge serial numbers on chips and racks. They recommend cryptographic attestation of a powered-on chip as an extra check. ²

  Known failure · Theoretical argument · Significant · Open. On the record

Scope limitations

• Records cover only chips that were recorded in Chip registries and manufacturing records

  A registry or commitment accounts only for chips entered into it. Cankaya asks how a verifier would know it had found all chips, or how much "dark compute" remains, and notes that a fraudulent original record would mean unregistered chips had been made in advance. Halstead and Larsen propose reconstructing earlier production by auditing upstream suppliers. ^{3 5}

  Scope limitation · Theoretical argument. On the record

  Related mechanism Proposed Remote detection of data centres: Looks for large data centres that were never declared, which a registry cannot show. A pointer, not evidence that this failure is mitigated. Add

• Insiders could alter records before they are fixed in Chip registries and manufacturing records

  Cankaya argues that insiders who can photograph process secrets could also tamper with production records. A commitment makes changes after publication detectable, but it cannot show that the records were accurate when committed. ³

  Scope limitation · Theoretical argument. On the record

• Everything rests on the trusted setup in RAND secure inference data center (SIDC) design

  Reference measurements for model weights and reference data are established in a trusted setup phase. The report states that the system cannot detect compromise that happened before ingestion if the trusted setup itself is compromised. ⁶

  Scope limitation · Theoretical argument. On the record

• Security weakens over long operation in RAND secure inference data center (SIDC) design

  The authors claim that the facility can withstand attacks at the OC5 level for a five-year operational period. They expect its ability to withstand long OC5 campaigns to become less robust the longer the facility remains in operation. ⁶

  Scope limitation · Theoretical argument. On the record

Not yet demonstrated

Proposed Chip registries and manufacturing records and Proposed Bandwidth limits and compartmentalization

Mechanisms on the map that are not in the proposal. Pointers, not recommendations. ?

The records connect no other mechanism to this proposal's gaps, open failures or dependencies.

Blockers

7 blockers recorded

• Chip registries and manufacturing records
  • No implementation of an AI chip registry has been publicly reported, and covering re-exports would need cooperation from re-exporters and foreign governments that may not be feasible everywhere. Access & governance ^{1 2}
  • Linking records to physical chips needs hard-to-spoof unique IDs and inspections. Hardware trust ^{1 2 3}
  • Chips produced before a registry starts must be reconstructed from supplier records. Coverage & hidden compute ^{3 5}
• Bandwidth limits and compartmentalization
  • No prototype exists; RAND recommends prototyping key security features and integration now. Adversarial validation ⁶
  • The report describes internal integrity checks, audit logging and accreditation, but no way for a party outside the operator to verify the facility's properties. Access & governance ⁶
  • Human review of every prompt and response makes each request take three to five minutes, with the review steps as the rate-limiting factor. Performance & compatibility ⁶
  • Detailed design information is withheld from the public report and is to be evaluated privately with stakeholders, which limits independent public scrutiny. Access & governance ⁶

From the family or selected implementation's record. ?

Model weights

Not involved: Chip registries and manufacturing records.

Unspecified for Bandwidth limits and compartmentalization. Check the implementation record.

Inputs and outputs

Not involved: Chip registries and manufacturing records.

Unspecified for Bandwidth limits and compartmentalization. Check the implementation record.

Training data

Not involved: Chip registries and manufacturing records.

Unspecified for Bandwidth limits and compartmentalization. Check the implementation record.

Chip registries and manufacturing records

None on the map

Bandwidth limits and compartmentalization

• Proposed AI 2040 inference-only verification stack Proposed architecture, AI Futures Project
• Proposed RAND secure inference data center (SIDC) design Proposed architecture, RAND

1. Verifying International Agreements on AI: Six Layers of Verification for Rules on Large-Scale AI Development and Deployment, M. Baker et al. (2025). Original
2. Near-Term Verification Methods for AI Chip Exports, B. Avellar & E. Grunewald (2026). Original
3. TSMC most definitely has a golden record of all AI chips it made, N. Cankaya (2025). Original
4. Hardware-Level Governance of AI Compute: A Feasibility Taxonomy for Regulatory Compliance and Treaty Verification, S. Ansari (2026). Original
5. Covert AI Projects, B. Halstead & T. Larsen (2026). Original
6. Highly Secure Inference Data Centers: A Vertically Integrated Strategy for Security Engineering, S. F. Comer et al. (2026). Original
7. DiLoCo: Distributed Low-Communication Training of Language Models, A. Douillard et al. (2024). Original
8. Does Distributed Training Undermine Compute Governance?, R. Rahman (2026). Original
9. Traffic Shaping for Workload Classification, Lucid Computing (2026). Original
10. The Tray as a Bandwidth Boundary, Amodo Design (2026). Original